Recent Blog Entries

At the beginning of the year, when I was a complete novice, I went to the half price book store, in the hope of finding some inspiration and help.  I couldnt find anything specific in the cookery section, so I meandered off to the discount shelves in hope of finding a novel in order to utllise my time doing something other than filling my freezer with dough items.  I noticed one book had been replaced backwards.  Imagine my excitement as I pulled it out, to find the title was simply 'BREAD'.  Eureka!  I have since made and adapted (oh yes, I said adapted...my adventurous streak now knows no boundaries!) many recipes, one of which is the 40 minute hamburger buns. 

Admittedly, the first time I attempted these the reception was not marvelous.  They were a little too doughy to be the traditional 'baps' that are served at the fast food joints, but they sufficed.  Then, last night, a stroke of genius hit me.  I could 'adapt' the recipe.  The dough makes 12 rolls but I managed to eek it out to 14.  To the first four I added chopped jalpeno, the next three olives, the next three carraway seeds and finally a mixture of italian herbs, majoram, parsely and rosemary.  Before putting them in the oven, I sprinkled cheese on the jalapeno four. 

The fact that four of us demolished them before the meal was over, I thought, was a positive sign.  If anyone wants the recipe here it is.

1 cup of warm water; 2 tablespoons (american) of fast active yeast; 1/4 cup sugar; 1/3 cup oil; 1 egg; 1 teaspoon salt; 3-3.5 cups of flour.

Add yeast to warm water, then add sugar and oil.  Mix together and leave for five minutes.  Add egg and salt, mix, then add enough flour to form soft dough.  Kneed for 3-5 minutes.  Divide into 12 pieces an roll in hands to form a 'roll'.  Add whatever you like to each roll and put on baking tray.  Cover and leave for 10 minutes.  Bake in a hot (425) oven for 8-12 mins. 

Enjoy!

Today I revisited my childhood. For the first time I baked Danish Tebirkes.
For many years my grandmother, aunt, two cousins and I would spend our summer holidays in Denmark. Every morning
one of us kids would bike to the grocery store to pick up freshly baked rolls for breakfast. My favorite were Tebirkes, buttery, croissant-like rolls, sprinkled with poppy seeds.

I have wanted to take classes from SFBI for so long, but TX is not exactly close to SF, and my day job really gets in the way of scheduling. When I saw they started offering some weekend workshops, I jumped on the opportunity. And of course, I picked the baguette class, since that's my main obsession.

Arriving early to be greeted by friendly classmates, teacher, and lots of fresh croissants. While we were going through our class, the students were just producing breads nonstop the entire time, and lucky us got to sample a few.

Hmmm, I wonder if I can ask for this to be my birthday gift? I am sure we can fit one in.... if we tear down our living room and den!

Would anyone notice if I just take a couple?....I AM KIDDING!

Now, let's get to work, 3 types for the first day: straight dough, poolish, and sponge. All done with minimal mixing (hand mixed to incorporate), and 3 sets of S&F.

I have done S&F every weekend, but handling 7.5KG of dough is decidely different from handling 1KG. Note to self, must lift weights.

We had lectures while waiting for the dough, but my favorite part is the hands on part. Look at the big tubs of dough, this  is when I realized that professional baking is a very very very physical job. Oh, I also would like a kitchen that's as big as this!

Teacher Frank is showing us how to divide and preshape. Even pieces, even tension, repeat.

We make 5 pieces for each type of baguette, my preshaping is far from perfect

Many many many trays of dough - 15 pieces per person per day

It's almost 2pm, we are starving. Let's get these babies shaped already! My batch of straight dough baguettes here - with my name on it!

Lunch , thank goodness. We inhaled that one. On 2nd day, we had pizza (yum!) and wine for lunch. Let's just say there were a lot more giggling in the afternoon session.

Well fed, let's check on the dough, ready to be scored and baked!

Loading is "interesting". Frank also showed us the home oven method (baking stone, cast iron skillets underneads to create steam etc.).

Best part, time to taste and critique! These are Frank's, hole-y and beautiful

These are mine. The dough is about 68% hydration, not so wet, so scoring was not difficult, I am semi-happy with the left two, no idea what happened for the one on the right. Seems that I loaded it too close to the right edge, didn't get browned on that side. It's straight dough, poolish, and sponge from left to right.

Not as open as Frank's crumb, need more practice with the new shaping method.

We all like the taset of sponge one the best, but all three are delicious.

We did 3 more formulas on the 2nd day (With teff, with sunflower seeds, and ww with wheat germ), and tried epi too.

All in all, a great experience! A lot of the info were familiar to me thanks to the knowledgable people here at TFL, but it helps tremendously to see close up how a professional handles the dough , and practice on 15 baguettes each day. Frank was very helpful answering questions and helping too. The shaping and preshaping methods are slightly different from what I have been doing previously, I like this new way better, will keep practicing at home for sure. Everyone ended up with loads of bread at the end of each day, since I was from out of town, I gave most of mine away to a classmate, who then distributed to elders in her neighbourhood - makes me happy.

Growing up in England in the late forties, early fifties, Tatt's cafe Near Folkestone Central train station served the most delicious Belgium Buns. I remember them being 4-5inches across and about 3/4 of an inch high. They were soft and sticky. filled with currants and glazed with transparent icing. It seems that there is only one recipe on the whole of the internet for these wonderful buns but although I have tried it many times it is just not right! Does anyone else remember these buns or have a recipe for them?

( Mr Noel Tatt was a young man when his parents ran the cafe - I believe he now owns a large greeting card company - Maybe he'd remember....... )

Thank you to any one who can help in this search - Merlie.