Posts Tagged ‘Baking’
Sunday, July 10th, 2011
My latest, greatest baking discovery is the Dutch Oven I bought a few weeks ago. Recommended by the tutors at the SFBI as one of the best ways to cook bread at home, they yet again have proved they know their onions as it’s already helped me knock out a bunch of consistently great bread in the kitchen of our rented apartment.
The reasons it works so well are two fold. Firstly, the cast iron retains heat brilliantly, and as you’re baking in a sealed vessel your bread is less likely to be subject to any fluctuations in oven temp, which means a good even bake. The second reason is that it the lid traps steam, so there’s no need to fanny about with trays of boiling water or spraying your loaves pre-baking.
You could try something like a Le Creuset, as used baking Jim Lahey’s no knead loaf (where you almost pour the dough in), will work OK, but the Lodge Combo-Cooker I acquired is the business. Firstly, it was about the quarter of the price of a Le Creuset (they are quite a bit more expensive in the UK I’m afraid), and It’s other advantage is that you can invert it using the lid / skillet as the base to bake on which helps give a better crust colour while you’re venting the loaf. NB. You don’t have to have a Dutch Oven to make this formula, but it will give you better results.
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Tags: Bake, Baking, Bread, Combo-Cooker, Dan Lepard, Dutch Oven, Hand Made Loaf, Home, Le Creuset, Levain, Lodge, San Francisco, SFBI, Sourdough, Starter, Wheast Germ, Whole Wheat Flour
Posted in Equipment, Recipes, Travel | 9 Comments »
Wednesday, June 8th, 2011
To quote Jimmy Castor’s ‘Troglodyte‘, “What we’re gonna do right here is go back. Way back. Back into time…” because last week was all about kicking it old school, both in terms of ingredients and baking methods. We’re talking ancient grains and wood fire ovens.
Ancient wheats like spelt, khorasan (more commonly known as Kamut) emmer and, einkorn, and grains like millet, sorghum, quinoa, and teff were the precursors to modern wheat. They fell out of favour centuries ago as farmers and latterly scientists, developed the higher yield grains that we ‘enjoy’ today. However, wheats with increased yields and higher levels of protein / gluten are much harder for our bodies to digest, and less healthy. For this reason, ancient grains have become fashionable again, and are considered by many to be the future of bread.
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Tags: Ancient Grains, Baking, Bread, Einkorn, Emmer, Future, Kamut, Khorasan, Millet, Past, Quinoa, San Francisco, SFBI, Sorghum, Sourdough, Spelt, Starters, Teff, Wood Fired Oven
Posted in Opinion, Reviews, Travel | No Comments »
Tuesday, May 31st, 2011
I seriously can’t believe that I’m now a month in to the course at the SFBI. Time really is flying by crazy fast.
Last week we moved on from more refined flours to the healthier, more wholesome, and some might say less fun, whole grains. But as we discovered, healthier bread doesn’t have to mean slicing into a loaf with the weight and consistency of a house brick. Over the week we used an array of new flours both in doughs and in preferments, including whole wheat, semolina, type 85 high extraction flour, rye, buckwheat and corn to name but a few.
Millet Bread
But before we got busy, we discussed the various challenges of baking with whole grains. In comparison to more refined flours, there are two main factors to consider when working with them (again I’m simplifying and truncating things here). The first is the lower protein percentage / quality due to the presence of more bran in the flour. This equals less gluten, and therefore flatter breads as whole wheat doughs trap fermentation gases less readily. The second thing to watch out for are fermentation times. These are again affected by the higher levels of bran (also known as ‘ash content‘) in the flours. The minerals and nutrients in bran fuel enzyme activity, and that means faster and more intense fermentation, which effects a number of stages of the production process from bulk fermentation to final proof. Interesting, right? If not, you might be in the wrong place.
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Tags: Ash Content, Baking, Bread, Buckwheat, Corn, Course, Filone, Hazelnuts, Levain, Millett, Pear, Poolish, power, prairie, Rustic, Rye, San Francisco, Semolina, SFBI, Whole Grains
Posted in Opinion, Reviews, Travel | 2 Comments »
Monday, May 23rd, 2011
What. A. Week.
Despite the past two weeks at SFBI being fantastic, one of the things I’ve been most excited about getting stuck into is making sourdoughs and science behind the rise. I’ve done a fair few sourdough experiments at home in the past, but never really nailed it, so the past week really ticked some major boxes for me.
We started our foray into the world of sour by looking into it’s history and mythology, and of course touching on the famous San Francisco Sourdough. It’s interesting stuff (at least to me), and as a few readers have expressed an interest in knowing more, here’s a potted version.
Sourdough was discovered / invented by accident in ancient Egypt at around 1500 BC. The story goes that some women making loaves on the banks of the Nile left a couple out in the humid, sunny conditions. They discovered their omission, and added the dough that had started to leaven to the rest of their batch. They liked the resulting lighter bread and it’s flavour, and kick started a great bread making tradition.
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Tags: Baking, Bread, Culture, Egypt, Hand Mix, History, Leavening, Natural, Nile, San Francisco, San Francisco Sourdough, SFBI, Sourdough, Starter, Still, Yeast
Posted in Opinion, Reading, Reviews, Travel | No Comments »
Tuesday, May 10th, 2011
So my first week at the SFBI is over, and it’s been a blast. I’ve decided to do a post a week as opposed to boring everyone with continual stream of stuff as it happens. So this is post number one. I’ve also been given the green light by the college to post formulas (recipes), so I’ll probably share a few of them as we go. The majority of them thus far deal with pretty large quantities, but most should be able to be scaled down for home use.
As I mentioned in an earlier entry, the college is a bit of a pain to get to. It’s based in South San Francisco, and I’m currently staying in Russian Hill. (more…)
Tags: Baking, Professional Bread & Pastry Training Programme, San Francisco, SFBI
Posted in Opinion, Reviews, Travel | 4 Comments »
Wednesday, April 13th, 2011
So, after a fair few months of planning and saving, I’ve got some exciting news. Hand To Mouth is re-locating to the US for six months. The wife and I are upping sticks to head to San Francisco at the end of April, where I’m going to be doing a professional bread and pastry diploma at the awesome San Francisco Baking Institute.
Photo: Unknown
The seed for this adventure was first planted a little over a year ago when I read this post on the Chow blog. My wife and I were feeling increasingly disillusioned with our careers / industries, and had been talking for some time about opening our own cafe bakery. But with very little in the way of experience, we didn’t really know where to start. It was beginning to feel like it may always be a bit of a pipe dream, and then I read the Chow post and a large penny dropped.
So we did some research, found out more about the course, talked about it for a while, and decided to go for it. To be honest, it’s all a bit scary, but also exhilarating. If you’re a regular reader of the blog, you’ll know that I’ve been bitten by the baking bug, but this is a whole new ball game. I’m going to be well out of my comfort zone, and when you throw into the mix quitting a perfectly good, well paid job at one of the UK’s most respected ad agencies, you’ve either got a recipe for disaster, or the best thing I’ve ever done with my life.
We don’t have any time frame on when / if we’re going to start our own business, but that’s partly what this trip is all about. As well as doing the course, we’re going to do some work experience, travel around the States, and generally immerse ourselves in country’s food culture, whilst getting a plan together of the kind of business we want to open. But I guess there’s also every chance that we might end up by missing our day jobs, and we’ll yearn to return to London at the end of our adventure. Only time will tell.
So can an Advertising Wanker be transformed into a Master Baker? You’ll have to keep it locked right here to find out.
Tags: Advertising, Baking, Bread, Chef, Course, Escape The City, Life Change, Master Baker, Pastry, Professional, San Francisco Baking Institute, Travel
Posted in Opinion, Travel | 5 Comments »
Wednesday, March 10th, 2010
I’m going to be away for Easter in Australia visiting the future in-laws, so am going to miss out on the traditional treats that I’d be indulging in with the family down in Cornwall.
Food wise, the main thing I’m going to miss is the Hot Cross Buns. I love them. Toasted, slathered in melting butter and a good dollop of course bitter sweet orange marmalade. Anyway, I told myself that I wasn’t going to miss out, so decided to make my own for the first time. This recipe is lifted pretty much lock, stock and barrel from here on the BBC Food website, and the results went down a storm.
Ingredients
625g strong white flour, plus extra for dusting
1 tsp salt
2 tsp ground mixed spice
45g unsalted butter, cut into cubes, plus extra for greasing
85g sugar
1 lemon, zest only
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Tags: Baking, BBC Food, Bread, Butter, Easter, Hot Cross Buns, Marmalade, Sweet, Treat
Posted in Recipes, Sweet Stuff | 5 Comments »
Monday, March 1st, 2010
It’s been around for a while, but I first read about Jim Lahey’s ‘no knead bread‘ in a Saveur magazine when I was in New York last year. I’d already got the bread baking bug, and the idea of a loaf that required no kneading seemed a bit odd, even a bit sacrilegious. I did a bit of research on line, and found out that everyone raves about the loaf, and it basically put Lahey’s Sullivan Street Bakery on the map.
Anyway, it definitely got me interested. How could a loaf requiring so little work be so good? Life just isn’t like that. So I gave it a go. The loaf is cooked in a cast iron pot, a bit like an Australian damper, so you’ll need a Le Creuset or something similar for it to work.
Ingredients
3 cups (430g) flour
1½ cups (345g or 12oz) water
¼ teaspoon (1g) yeast
1¼ teaspoon (8g) salt
Olive oil
Rye flour (for dusting)
Method
Mix all of the dry ingredients in a bowl and mix together for a minute or so to form a ’shaggy’ dough. Transfer the dough to a larger bowl oiled with some olive oil. NB. the dough will expand to around 4 times the size, so make sure your bowl is big enough. Cover with clingfilm and let the dough develop for 12-18 hours at room temperature.
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Tags: Baking, Bread, Cast Iron, Home, Jim Lahey, Le Creuset, No Knead, Strong White Flour
Posted in Equipment, Reading, Recipes, Reviews, Snack, Travel | 4 Comments »
