Monday bakes

Has anyone baked the little dough used for gauging fermentation? 🤣 This is my baby dough (sitting on a teaspoon) from today’s sourdough cheese-stuffed fougasse (adapted from Maurizio’s) - this lil one took 18 minutes to bake. 

There were also baked potato skins with butter chicken filling and ..

.. my test bake: 6” lemon blueberry cake with walnut crumble. Usually whole berries are tossed in flour and folded into the batter but I wanted to see what happens when the batter is tinted with the fruit. This time the pigments changed slightly during the bake with blue most intense on the skins. As suggested by Benny, maybe I should use a lil bit of *ascorbic acid when working with such pigmented fruit. 

The lemon cake is tasty on its own without any other fruit inclusions. No syrup for this cake today since I’ve a crunchy walnut crumble on the top. 

6” lemon cake

• 130g all purpose flour 
• 5g cornflour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 60g sugar
• Zest from 1 lemon
• 30g unsalted butter
• 20g light olive oil
• 1 large egg
• 60g fresh lemon juice
• 60g milk
• 1/2 tsp lemon extract
• Optional: mixed berries tossed in flour 

 Blueberry reduction (for swirls/batter)

• 150g blueberries 
• 40g sugar
• 1 tbsp water
• 2 tsp lemon juice
• Zest of 1/2 lemon 

 Walnut sugar topping 

• 30g chopped walnut, untoasted
• 15g sugar
• A pinch of ground cinnamon
• A pinch of salt
• 15g unsalted butter 

*For canning and dehydration of fruit/vegetables, it’s suggested that the cut fruits/vegetables be soaked in a solution of ascorbic/citric acid for about 3-5 minutes to prevent discoloration/oxidation: 1500mg to 1 cup of water. I’ve to test this method followed by a 180-200°C bake. :)