Us Brits may have invented the humble sarnie, but the Americans have taken it to a whole new level. Here the sandwiches are a proper meal, lots of good stuff slapped between whichever kind of bread you fancy. The fact that burgers sit in the same section on a menu kind of sets the tone. Now I’ve tasted the brave new world, I feel kind of sad when I think about the Prets and Eats I used to visit so often back home, especially as most of the really good ones come out of small independent shops and delis.

Anyway, to prove the point, I thought I’d show you the evidence by showing you a few of our favourites (excluding burgers) from the recent months. GET READY TO DROOOOOOLLLL.

The Delores from Rheas Deli

Smoked peppered turkey, spicy cranberry sauce, muenster, bacon, tomatoes, red onion, pickles, pickles jalapenos, spinach on Dutch crunch bread.

The Golden Gate Sandwich from Whole Foods

Smoked turkey, bacon, provalone cheese, avocado, tomato, spinach, sun dried tomato mayonnaise on sourdough.

Fresh crab, cucumber, lettuce, tomato, cress, lettuce, mayonnaise on sourdough

The Korean Steak Sandwich from Rhea’s Deli

Rib eye marinated in soy, garlic, honey & spices, swiss cheese, chili garlic sauce, pickled red onions & jalapenos, fresh onions, lettuce, garlic aioli on an ACME organic roll.

The Eggbert from Saul’s Deli

Organic egg salad, olive tapenade, shaved fennel, arugula (rocket) on toasted challah.

Mayoose’s CA-BLT from Ike’s Place

Bacon, avocado, jack, lettuce, tomato, dirty sauce on Dutch crunch.

So that’s it. It’s over. 4 and a half months, 18 weeks, 90 days, 720 hours, 43,200 minutes of hardcore baking action. We graduated from the SFBI Professional Bread & Pastry Programme last Friday, and I’ve go to say it was a bitter sweet occasion.

In the week running up to the graduation, as a group we made over 160 products, and most of them in multiple numbers. We were split into four groups as usual, with two groups concentrating more on bread and the other two predominantly on cakes and pastry. It was a full on week of late nights, early mornings, little sleep and lots of coffee. We all started on pastry, prepping stuff to be frozen and items with good shelf life, and the production schedule steadily ramped up over the week to fever pitch, particularly on Thursday and Friday for us bread people. It was full on, but hugely enjoyable. I have to admit, I felt pretty emotional as I scored the very last loaf that went into the oven.

The graduation ceremony itself was a fitting end, with a great turnout. Michel gave a fantastic speech, after which we each had to talk about our favourite product from the 18 weeks. I managed to forget why I’d chosen mine (I blame lack of sleep and having to stand near those bloody ovens), but think I pulled it back in the end. We were then treated to a bit of a skit / awards ceremony that two of my fellow students, Anthea and Justin, had put together. Each classmate was given a ‘Golden Baguette’ award, of which I received ‘Most Likely TV Chef’, which was flattering…I think. We then feasted on all that we’d made, as well as fresh pizzas from the wood fired oven, and a well earned drink or three.

Overall the course was a fantastic experience. It was pretty much everything I hoped it would be, and more. I’ve learned so much, and genuinely feel prepared and ready (or as ready as I’ll ever be) to take what I’ve learned to the next level. I’ve got to say a final big thanks to everyone at the school, but in particular Frank, Mac, Juliette and Le Grande Fromage himself, Michel. They run a pretty unique programme at The SFBI, and it’s been a great privilege to have spent the last few months in their company.

I’ve also made some great new friends from all four corners of the globe. I’ve got high hopes for each of them, and hope that they go on to do great things, and realise their hopes and dreams. Christ, I sound almost American! It must be time for me to come home.

So on that subject, what’s next? Seems odd that a few months ago, I thought that quitting my job and actually getting out here was the tough part, but I guess it’s the tip of the iceberg. I’ve got a couple of weeks work experience at Tartine before we leave, which is great, but when I get back to the UK at the end of October I’ll be looking for work. So if there are any bakers who need an extra pair of hands, or anyone who wants to help me fulfill my Golden Baguette award, you know where to find me.

If you want to see more pictures from the graduation week, click here.

Going back in time a bit, on the last day of the bread section of my course we had a flat bread day. We made pitta, pizza, lavash and naan breads. Knowing we were going to make them, I thought I’d give my course mates a little taste of ‘home’ by making some spiced fillings for a few of the naan. Well everyone knows how much us Brits love a curry.

The breads are made with a whole wheat biga, which is a (typically) Italian stiff pre-ferment, although I imagine the Indians would use hunks of ‘old dough’ to add flavour and a bit of leavening. As the biga is made of whole wheat and has a wee bit of yeast in it, you don’t need to make it the night before, just a few hours before you make your final dough, which has a 3 hour bulk ferment, so you’ll need to get a bit organised.

I made the meat (keema) filling for the carnivores and a vegetarian version for the herbivores and we baked the breads in the schools wood fired oven, which I’m guessing most of you out there don’t have. Don’t worry, you can cook them in your oven at home. Just make sure it’s as hot as Hades, and that you bake the naans on something solid and heat retaining like a pizza stone or heavy roasting tin.

Ready?

Ingredients (makes 4)

For The Bread

380g White Bread Flour

30g Whole Wheat Flour

170g Water (temp of around 26c)

16g Ghee or melted butter

12g Salt

1g Instant Yeast

160g Goat or regular low fat Yoghurt

225g Whole Wheat Biga (see below)

More Ghee / Butter for brushing the bread with

For The Keema

400g Minced Beef

1/2 Onion, finely chopped

1/2 Hot Chilli

2 Cloves Garlic, Finely Chopped

1 teaspoon Garam Massala

1/2 teaspoon Ground Coriander

1/2 teaspoon Turmeric

1/2 teaspoon Chilli Powder

1/2 teaspoon Ground Cumin

Handful Chopped Fresh Coriander

Squeeze of Lemon Juice

Salt and Pepper to taste

For The Vegetarian Filling

2 Medium Onions, sliced

2 Cloves Garlic, finely chopped

1 teaspoon Cumin Seeds

1/2 teaspoon Ground Coriander

1/2 teaspoon Turmeric

1/2 teaspoon Salt

Method

So, the first thing to do is make your biga, which you should do around 4 hours before you’re going to make your dough. Simply mix together 140g of whole wheat flour with 90g of water and half a pinch of dried yeast. Give it a good old mix, cover and place somewhere warm.

When you’re ready to make your dough, put all the ingredients, including the biga, into a bowl. If you’ve got a mixer with a dough hook, mix on the lowest speed for 4 or so minutes to combine all the ingredients, and then turn it up to speed two for around 2 to 3 minutes. You’re looking for the dough to have a good level of tenacity. If you don’t have a mixer, combine all the ingredients in a bowl and then knead on a floured surface for around 8 to 10 minutes until your dough reaches the same strength. When ready, turn the dough out into an oiled bowl, cover and set aside for 3 hours.

While you’re waiting, prep the fillings as you’re better off using them cold. It’s all pretty easy. For the mince, fry off the spices for a minute or so being careful not to burn them, then add the garlic and onions to the pan. Fry these until they’re soft, and then add the mince. Keep cooking on a medium heat until the mixture dries out, and then stir in the chopped coriander. Set aside to cool, and then make the onions. Again fry the spices, fry the onions and garlic until caramalised and dry-ish, then set aside.

After three hours, remove your dough from the bowl and divide into 4 equal portions of 250g each. Take each piece, de-gas gently with the palm of your hand (don’t smash the dough, just reduce the volume) and then pre-shape into a rough triangle by folding over two sides to form a point a bit like you’d fold a paper plane, and then fold over the base. Flip each of the triangles over (see picture above), set aside and cover for 45 minutes for the final prove and then set your oven to as hot as it will go (preferably 260c +).

After this time, take each of your pieces of dough and cut in half. Flatten each half into a long, thin triangle using the tips of your fingers. On one, place half the mince / half the onion mixture leaving a clear border of at least half an inch around the edge. Then moisten this with some water, before placing the other half on top. Seal the edge by pinching the two halves together, and then using the tips of your fingers again, push the two layers together. This is what gives the naan the classic dimpled effect. You can afford to be quite firm, just try not to puncture the dough.

You’re now ready to go. Get your bread on some kind of transfer peel (it’s probably best to bake only one or two at a time), and then slide them into your oven onto your stone / baking tray. As the oven is so hot, they should cook in around 10 minutes, but keep an eye on them. Take them out when they’re golden brown and have puffed up.

Once they’re out of the oven, brush them with ghee or melted butter and eat immediately. Either alone, with a curry, or a bit of raita.

A week or so ago on a rare, but none the less slightly grey and grim San Francisco Saturday, we headed to an area of the city called Sunset. It’s a part of town bordered by Ocean Beach (the local break for a lot of SF surfers) and the Pacific Highway that on paper has a lot going for it, but seems to have become a bit neglected, a bit like a faded British seaside town.

We’d read that the area is on the up again following a small cluster of new(ish) and interesting places opening up down there, one of which is a cafe / restaurant called Outerlands. I’d first heard about Outerlands from a Tartine Bread video that features the owner, David Muller. David had met Chad Robertson through a love of surfing, and Chad taught David how to make the bread that he now serves at the cafe.

We pitched up at around late lunch time, and it was busy, busy. So we put our names down and sat on the little bench outside and happily watched the world go by. After half an hour we were beginning to get a bit chilly, but before long we were sat inside the warm, wood clad interior perusing the simple but delicious sounding menu, most of which is based around David’s excellent bread.

Over a glass off red wine and a Black Butte Porter (served in Ball jam jars, natch) we quickly decided on the soup and grilled cheese combo. The delicious broccoli and potato soup had a little island of sauteed borage on the top, and was lightly spiced with either cumin or ground coriander. Properly warming and hearty stuff. Perfect food for the weather.

The grilled cheese sandwich was a thing of beauty. So simple, yet so effective. The bread was ‘toasted’ by being brushed with garlic olive oil and then seared on a skillet to give it this toothsome, super tasty crust. The twin cheese filling was a combination of (we think) Cheddar and Colby, and was melted to perfection. So tasty, and went brilliantly with the soup.

As you’ll know, I’m a lover of simple food done really well, which Outerlands seems to have pegged, but for me one of the greatest and most encouraging thing is how it has been instrumental in kick-starting the rejuvenation of an area of town. Sure, Sunset isn’t all surf breaks and hipsters, but along with places like Woodshop, Mollusk, Tuesday Tattoo and The General Store it shows how good food and a bunch of like minded people can make a difference.

A local hero in the truest sense, then. We’ll be back to sample the dinner menu.

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.

The following is adapted from one of my favourite formulas we made during the bread section of the course at the SFBI. It is basically a no knead recipe, with the dough strength being developed over a series of folds. The formula assumes that you’ve got a liquid starter on the go. If you don’t have one, there’s a whole world of bread advice out there on line, so just search, but you’ll need a week or so to get it moving. The toasted wheat germ in the recipe isn’t a deal breaker, but it adds extra flavour and colour to the crumb. I’m not sure how easy it is to get in the UK, but if you can’t find it, just sift some whole wheat flour in a fine sieve and what you’ll have left in it is the germ. Toast it in a hot oven (200 c) for a few minutes until it gets slightly darker, but don’t burn it.

Right, lets get busy.

Ingredients

For the levain (makes 189g for  final dough)

63g Strong White Bread Flour

21g Whole Wheal Flour

84g Water

21g liquid starter

For the final dough

474g Strong White Bread Flour

326g Water

12g Salt

189g Liquid Levain

5g Toasted Wheat Germ

Method

12 or so hours before you mix your dough, you need to mix your levain. So weigh out your dry and wet ingredients, mix them together well and then leave at room temperature for the allotted time. When you re-vist your levain it should have at least doubled in volume, be good and frothy and smell like there’s plenty of fermentation activity.

You’re now ready to mix your dough. Put all your ingredients in a large bowl, and get your hands in there and mix it up. You want to make sure that everything is well incorporated together, and there are no floury patches. It’ll be a bit messy, but it’s a small price to pay. One thing to note is that you want your mixed dough to be at around 26 c when you’re done, so if the room is cold / hot you can try adjusting this with your water temperature.

The dough will look pretty shaggy at this point, but fear not, it will come together. Scrape out all the dough and transfer to another well oiled bowl, and cover with a lid / cling film and set aside somewhere at room temperature. As this dough hasn’t been mixed or kneaded, it needs time to develop and ferment, which is going to take about 3 hours.

Over these three hours you’re going to fold the bread every 45 minutes (3 times in total), and I’ll explain what I mean by this now. If you imagine your ball of dough as a square, you’re going to take each side of it and stretch it slightly, and then fold it on top of itself. So you do this 4 times, and then you flip the dough over so the folds you’ve made are now underneath. The dough is pretty sticky, so make sure your hands are oiled or wet when you do this.

After each fold, you’ll notice small changes in the dough that show it’s gaining strength. It will become less ’stretchy’ and more ‘elastic’, it will start to get gassy, and also smoother and silkier. By the time you’ve done your third fold it should be slightly shiny and ’sitting up’ in your bowl with a domed appearance. Set aside and cover for the final stint.

After the full three hours, and you’re happy with your dough, turn it out onto a floured work surface, sprinkle the top with a light dusting of flour and then de-gas the dough with the palm of your hand before shaping into a tight-ish ball. Leave the pre-shaped dough on your work surface, covering it with your inverted bowl, and leave to rest for half an hour.

Return to your dough half an hour later, de-gas again, shape into a tight ball again (or what ever style you want) and place it seam side up in a well floured proofing basket (these are cheap and easy to get on-line) for it’s final proof. You now have two choices. You can either stick the dough and basket in a plastic bag for it’s final three hour proof, or pop it in your fridge to retard over night (up to 16 hours), which I would recommend as it helps develop flavour amongst other things.

Either way, and hour before you’re ready to bake, set your oven to 26o c with the Dutch Oven inside so it gets up to temperature (if you’ve retarded your bread take it out half an hour before you bake). After an hour, take out the Dutch Oven, open it and invert the proofing basket onto it. If you’ve floured it properly, the dough should fall out and sit proudly on the skillet. Now slash the top with a diamond pattern (or whatever style works for you), making sure not to cut too deep, or go too far down the side of the loaf. Now place the ‘lid’ over the top and pop back in the oven.

You’re going to bake the loaf with the lid on for 30 minutes. After this time remove it and continue to bake (or vent) for a further 10-15 minutes. This helps set the crust, and will develop it to a deep golden brown colour.

When you’ve got your colour, remove the loaf from the skillet and place on a rack to cool. Contrary to common belief, you should never eat bread fresh from the oven. It’s still cooking when it’s hot, and develops more flavour as it cools. But when it has cooled, get stuck in and enjoy the fruits of your labour. The crumb should be open with plenty of air bubbles, and have an almost translucent quality.

I know all this sounds like a bit of a faff, but once you’ve done it a few times you’ll see that it’s not much effort, and all it really takes is a bit of time and organisation. Plus, when you slice through that crust and taste that hand made, home made loaf, you’ll realise it was all worth it.

Oh and (sorry to brag) but Dan Lepard saw a (rather blurry) picture of the loaf above on Flickr and commented ‘Excellent!’. Now if that isn’t a ringing endorsement for the Dutch Oven method and this formula, I don’t know what is.

Last week bought with it mixed feelings. It was our last week of studying ‘pure’ bread. This week we’ve moved on to Viennoiserie, and whilst I am totally relishing the fresh challenges and new techniques we’re getting to experience dealing with enriched doughs, I’ve got to confess, I’m missing the bread ‘lab’ quite a bit.

The week was basically a review of all the techniques and baking concepts we’d covered over the past couple of months, and started where we began with baguettes. It was really good to revisit our French friends, as it helped cement a bunch of stuff that wasn’t really glued down. I guess in those first few weeks there was so much information flooding into my brain that I couldn’t really grasp hold of it all, and with baguettes being one of the most challenging breads, there was a lot to remember.

So we did a good day of mixing, shaping, rolling, scoring and baking the buggers, and I was relieved that aside from a few howlers here and there, I was pretty happy with how they turned out. For me, in many ways the scoring is the trickiest thing. You need to get the angle and depth of the cuts just right to get that spring and the famous baguette ears. I changed my technique after a bit more of an in-depth critique of my first batch, which improved results, but I’ve still got a lot of practicing to do.

Day two was all about re-visiting sourdoughs, and further crystallising the techniques and concepts around baking them. We did an interesting (again I guess this term is relative depending on how into bread you are) experiment with four almost identical sourdough formulas where the only variable was the percentage of (2 feed schedule) starter added. We made breads with 10, 20, 30 and 40% in the mix, baked them off and compared the results.

Obviously, the breads with the higher percentage were ’sourer’, but was was also interesting was the balance and depth of flavour. The lower percentages were a bit bland, and maybe could have used a bit more salt to make them more interesting, but the 40%, whilst having a pleasing twang lacked the depth as the sourness seemed to override everything else. The 30% was probably my favourite with a good balance of both, but like with many things it life, it’s a matter of taste.

We also mixed a ciabatta (revisiting the idea of  double-hydration) and a hand mixed sourdough which was probably my favourite bread of the course so far. It used 50% liquid white and whole wheat flour starter and a small amount of toasted wheat-germ in the final formula. The strength was developed through a a series of 3 folds every 45 minutes, it was pre-shaped, then final shaped in baskets and then retarded over night for baking the following morning. The results were awesometown. I made a 1.5 k loaf which came out brilliantly and made me a very happy man. Hmmm I can still taste it now.

Day three we moved in to uncharted territory. A land known as gluten flee. It was an OK place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there. As with the ancient grains, through various consultation projects the SFBI have pioneered improving the quality of gluten free breads. We made various loaves with sorghum, buckwheat, teff and rice flour, which was in many ways a bit more like making a cake than baking bread. The results were better than anything gluten free that I’ve tasted before (not that I’m much of an expert), but I have to say I’m glad I don’t need to rely on them for my daily bread.

Moving swiftly on, Thursday was a mixed bag of various breads. We re-visted a bit of German rye, a bit of ancient grain action, some whole wheat, a roll recipe and another of my favourite loaves of the course, the Miche. The Miche is a classic French sourdough loaf weighing in at around 1.5 to 2 kilograms, the most famous of which is made by the peeps at Poilâne. Those that know me know that I’m a HUGE Poilâne fan and have blogged about their legendary bread before, so was pretty excited about baking this bad boy.

The loaf used high extraction flour, a high percentage of starter (almost 70%) and water, as well as a bit of toasted wheat-germ. We also autolysed the flour (there’s a pretty good explanation of the process here) to improve the flavour of the loaf, and developed strength with folds before shaping and retarding over night. Again I was a happy man. The higher extraction flour gave a tighter crumb, but a great flavour and a great sourdough tang. Trés bon.

The final day of the week was a bit of a party. The wood fired oven was stoked up again, and using the direct fire method (where there is is still a fire burning at the time of baking) we baked a bunch of different flat breads. Pita, naan (more on this in a post all of it’s own soon), lavash, and of course pizza. It was a great day, and a fitting farewell to the bread section of the course.

So that was seven weeks of bread. Big thanks to Frank and Mac who held our hands so brilliantly over the past 7 weeks. Onwards to the pastry lab…

Well maybe not everything, but it doesn’t get much better than kicking things off with an East 17 pun. So, another week, another post. Are you bored of bread yet? You better not be.

Last week was all about European, predominantly German, style breads. Which means rye. And lots of it. I’ve got to put my hands up and admit that I’ve never been the world’s biggest fan of rye breads. I don’t mind a bit every now and then, and like the flavour in small doses, but I never crave those dark, heavy loaves like I do a good bit of toothsome, tangy sourdough.

You might be expecting me to say that having got hands on with them that I’m now a convert, but I’ve got to say, I’m afraid I’m not. I also find it hard to fall in love with breads with names like Volkornbrot and Swabian Bread. Maybe that’s because I’m shallow.

Sunflower Rye

But that doesn’t mean that last week was a lost cause, in fact far from it. We started the week with some great sourdoughs incorporating increasing percentages of rye so we could see the effects on the bread making process, and taste the development of flavour. My favourites were the sunflower, Finnish and honey ryes, the latter of which went up to around 75% percent rye flower.

Finnish Rye

And then it got all got a bit heavy. We moved into the realms of the volkornbrot, the pumpernickel, Grahambrot, Heidebrot and so on. I’m sorry to say, that to me all the heavier ryes taste a bit the same. Some had added seeds, soakers and spices, but the heaviness, strong flavour and gummier mouth feel just isn’t my bag. Maybe I’ll acquire a taste for it, but I think it may be a way off.

Volkornbrot

Later in the week, things lightened up when we tackled bagels and pretzels. It was good to get involved baking some breads with slightly different techniques and processes. Shaping and boiling the bagels, and tie-ing and lye-ing the pretzels. On which subject, check this out. Pretzels are ‘cured’ in a substance called lye before they are baked off. Lye, or caustic soda as it’s known in the UK, is a pretty hardcore alkali, and involved us donning rubber gloves and laboratory goggles to dip the knotted dough. I had know idea it was used in the baking process, and even though it gets neutralised at high temperatures, it feels pretty un-natural. Still, the pretzels tasted goooood, especially the ones we wrapped around bratwursts.

We ended the week in a pretty eclectic fashion with a mixture of sweet, seriously savoury and showy breads. Starting with the sweet, we made a big batch of sweet dough that we used to make chocolate chip rolls, braided rolls (think mini challah) and a cake style bread topped with sugar, butter, almond paste and almond slivers. Very tasty.

Then Frank, our tutor for the past few weeks, blew our minds with probably the craziest bread I’ve ever heard of. Made with Beaujoulais nouveau and diced Saucisson. I’m not kidding. It’s made each year in the South East of France to herald the arrival of the new Beaujoulais vintage, and it is seriously tasty. It would kill you you if you ate it every day. But it might be worth it.

Beaujolais Bread

Finally, we made a bunch of what are called ‘French Country shapes’. Although these breads contained a small percentage of rye, their function is traditionally more about showing off the craftsmanship of French master bakers. Some are more elaborate than others, and whilst this isn’t really considered to be ‘eating bread’, again it was good to get a few more techniques and styles under our belts.

French Country Shapes

So all in all, another packed 5 days. This week we’re doing a bit of a review of what we’ve covered so far. From baguettes to the wood fired oven. So, until then…

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.

But with less gluten, come flatter, denser breads. Or so my experience had taught me. However, the SFBI has been pioneering research in dealing with these ancient grains more successfully. They have been employed by various culinary organisations to develop formulas and techniques that use these flours to greater effect and realise results that are closer to those which today’s consumers expect.

Before last week, I had little or no experience in dealing with these kinds of grains, and I wasn’t expecting great things, but I was impressed. The breads were definately heavier in general, but with most of them we managed to get surprisingly open textures, and with the exception of the quinoa (pretty rank, sorry), some damn tasty breads. We achieved this through more careful mixing, using cooked starters (using boiling water to glutinise starches and ’set’ hydration), careful handling and lots of venting.

Again, across the week we cooked a lot of bread. We kicked things off pretty simply by doing some kamut, spelt and einkhorn sourdoughs to get an idea of the different flavour profiles, before mixing things up using kamut and spelt flours as bases for a bunch of different breads incorporating different quantities of ancient grains. These included kamut with wheat germ, barley bread, sorghum and kamut, teff sourdough, Moroccan barley fougasse, millet and pecan, quinoa sourdough, cracked kamut crowns, sorgum olive bread, we even sprouted some spelt to use in an ancient grain style pan bread. Another busy week.

Running in tandem with all this ancient grain shizzle was some ancient fire shizzle. The SFBI wood fired oven got fired up early in the week in preparation for a wood fired class being held at the weekend, and luckily we got to see and taste some of the benefits. We had a long discussion about the pros and cons of wood fired vs deck ovens, and despite the romance and the appealing flavour of the of the open fire, my feeling is that it seems to be more trouble than it’s worth. With the all the work that goes in to keeping the oven at the right temperature in addition to the scheduling and effort of making the doughs, and then getting temp and proofing times to match up, it all ads up to a huge commitment.

That being said, I did have one of the finest croissants of my life baked by Mike (mentioned in the previous post) who was manning the oven for most of the week. I don’t know what it was about it, but it just tasted richer. I’d love one at home, but not sure I could bake in one every day.

This week is all about German rye breads, and other European specialties such as bagels, pretzels and French country shapes. Until then…

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.

Corn Bread

Anyway, as with previous weeks we went on to bake a shed-load of breads. We’ve really picked up production from the early days of the course, making on average 5 different loaves a day. It can be pretty hectic, and I’ve made a few mistakes along the way as a result, but nothing too major. So now for the list bit. This week, amongst others, we made 100% whole wheat pan bread, corn bread, millet bread, pear and buckwheat, candies hazelnut squares, oatmeal and date, semolina, raisin and fennel filones, as well as the oddly named crown of the great valley, prairie bread and power bread.

Pear & Buckwheat

Despite the more elaborate formulas we made last week, I think my favourite was the comparatively simple Rustic Filone. A short sourdough baguette made with whole wheat, white flour, a rye poolish and a liquid starter. Great crust and crumb with a really deep flavour. One to remember.

Power Bread

On a slightly different note, I was chatting to one of the other people on the course that has also quit a ‘desk job’ to do the course about how different it is being on your feet all day as opposed to sitting down staring at a screen for hours on end. I was saying to him that I’ve noticed that when I get home I’m absolutely shattered. But not the kind of shattered I was from doing what I was doing before which was borne of frustration, boredom and the ‘rat race’ in general. But from being mentally stimulated, and physical nature of the ‘work’.  I’m not sure it’s an epiphany, but it feels pretty bloody good.

Candied Hazelnut Squares

This week we’re focusing on ancient grains, so Kamut, Spelt, Einkhorn and others are on the menu. And the SFBI wood fired oven is being stoked up too. Should be interesting.

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.

We then went on to de-bunk some of the myths that surround the art of making bread with natural yeast. There’s quite a bit of romanticism surrounding sourdough cultures. You’ll hear of ones that have been passed down from some German monastery in the middle ages, but the truth of the matter is that a starter’s life-cycle and feeding schedule means that every few weeks or so it’s a totally new beast. Any traces of ancient flours or yeasts would be long gone after a few months. Sad but true.

The same is true of cultures that use stuff other than flour and water to kick start them. Some people swear by using fruit like grapes or rhubarb to get things started, but any natural yeasts that exist on the skin of such fruit will most likely not be that happy in their new habitat, and again will die off and be replaced pretty quickly. Although, fruit may contribute some sugars that will help kick start the fermentation process, so it does have it’s uses.

We then went on to talk specifically about San Francisco sourdough. I was under the impression that the starter would have a specific formula, but no. What makes an SF sourdough is Lactobacillus Sanfranciscensis, the natural yeast that’s in the air out here. Traditionally the starter is made with just flour and water and can be either stiff or liquid, but people have been known to add fruit, yoghurt, apple juice and probably all sorts of other things.

But the starter is only part of the story of that trademark tang. The other factor is the way the bread is made. The bread’s dough picks up these additional flavour profiles by retarding it overnight, which slows down fermentation and develops that taste and tang. Obviously, you can do this anywhere in the Word and create a near perfect facsimile of this kind of sourdough, but you wouldn’t really be able to call it a San Francisco sourdough as it wouldn’t contain that specific yeast. So hopefully that’s put that one to bed.

The majority of the rest of the week, we got busy in the lab. We kicked things off by starting our own culture that we managed to coax into life in time to be used in a starter on Thursday. And then be baked bread. LOTS of bread. Across the week we made SF sourdoughs, bulk and shape retarded sourdough baguettes, ciabattas, olive bead, walnut and raisin batards, sour wholewheat boules, braided challah and a chocolate bread.

I’ve probably missed a couple, but I think my favourite bread of the week was a ‘hand mix’ we did. Simple and easy, but a bit time consuming. We mixed the flour, water and starter by hand until properly combined and then bulk fermented it for around 3 hours, folding it every 45 minutes to build up it’s strength. We then divided the dough, roughly shaped it into 1.5 kilo rounds and set aside for half an hour or so. It was then shaped, popped into floured baskets and retarded over night to be baked first thing the following morning. The results were fantastic. Great crust, great crumb, great flavour, and very little effort. Time did most of the work. Probably not that practical from a big production point of view, but proper artisan stuff.

So that was the week that was. This week we’re doing whole grains. Until then…

The pre-ferments we used last week are kind of like junior sourdough starters, and mostly come in three styles. Liquid or ‘poolish’ (first developed by Polish bakers), a stiffer sponge also known as ‘biga’ (used traditionally by the Italians) and the more solid Pre-Fermented Dough (PFD). Unlike sourdough starters, they contain a small quantity of commercial yeast to kick start fermentation, and are usually left to develop for between 12 and 24 hours before being added to a final mix. Not only do they add character and flavour, but they also help aid gluten development allowing for less intensive mixing.

We used these different pre-ferments across the week to make a fantastic array of breads, starting with, you guessed it, more baguettes. The reason for doing this is that it gave us the opportunity to do a side by side comparison to see how the different styles effect the end product. Poolish is supposed to be the pre-ferment of choice for baguettes, but to my pallet the PFD tasted the best, with the biga coming off in last place.

Following on from this we incorporated PFD into a range of formulas. A Pain Meunier, or millers bread, which contains white flour, whole wheat flour, wheat germ and cracked wheat which is soaked over night, and shaped with dowel to create a ‘fendu’. Plain and toasted walnut whole wheat boules. A simple wheat and rye bread. A classic American intensively mixed, ‘pan’ bread which is enriched with a bit of sugar and butter. A braided egg bread, which is a bit like a less intense brioche, and contains as the name suggests eggs, and also sugar, milk power and butter. And last but not least a multi-grain ‘batard’ which is made with a pre-soaked mix of rolled oats, sesame, pumpkin, and flax seeds. They were all great in their own way, but I loved both the taste and the craft that went into the Meunier.

The use of PFD and ’soakers’ brings with it some interesting challenges from a formula point of view as you obviously have to take out a percentage of your yeast, water, flour and whatever else you are using to create them. I’ve found the calculating and re-calibrating element of the course the toughest part so far as the mathematical side of my brain is one that hasn’t seen any action for quite some time. But I think I’m getting on top of it. Or at least I hope I am.

The final part of the week was a practical ‘test’ of sorts where we were asked to make three different breads . Working in 4 groups of 4, we had to make two different types of baguettes in differing quantities, and one of the more specialty breads from earlier in the week. I think we all did really well. It was pretty hectic and hard work, but our baking schedules all ran pretty smoothly and everyone scaled their ingredients perfectly. There was obviously room for improvement, but as a first attempt at flying solo, it was a great success.

This week we’ve got our first introduction to sourdough, which I’m really excited about, so until next time…

After doing a bit more digging, I found this super inspiring video on the accompanying Tartine bread site.

Tartine Bread from 4SP Films on Vimeo.

I’m not sure about all that accordion playing, but I. CAN. NOT. WAIT. TO. TRY. THAT. BREAD.

Hmmmmmmm.

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.

And then, straight out of left-field comes The German Baker. My mate Javed has been telling me for some time about these bread vans that pitch up at locations around London (and the rest of Southern England) and ply their doughy wares. He swears by their breads, so I thought it was high time I got my act together and paid them a visit.

So, on a rather miserable, rainy Tuesday morning last week, I set off to track them down. Looking on their route planner I found out they were going to be outside the German Embassy between 9.15 and 10am, and true to stereotypical form, their truck was there bang on time tucked down a little alley beside the embassy.

Climbing on board you are greeted with not only a great array of breads, rolls and pastries, but all sorts of German deli fare and confectionery. But it was the breads that got me really excited. Shelves laden with pretzels, pumpernickel loaves, Kaiser rolls and all kinds of rye bread. Hmmmmmmmm.

On Javed’s recommendation, I went for a Bauernbrot, which is a rye and wheat mix. I wasn’t disappointed. It’s got a dense texture, with a really deep flavour, and a small hint of a kind of molasses sweetness. It’s great on its own with a generous spreading of butter, and makes a mean continental style cheese and ham sandwich with healthy dose of mustard.

Click here to find out if The German Baker passes through your ‘hood, and if not it’s well worth your while to intercept them somewhere.

Auf wiedersehen for now.

Mussels are back in season, and I can think of no better way to do them justice that with the classic French Marinière.

Not only is this recipe incredibly tasty, it’s as fast as hell; from chopping board to stuffing your face in 15 minutes flat as long as your mussels are clean. As an added bonus, mussels are pretty cheap, with a kilo coming in at around 5 or 6 pounds.

Lets do this.

Ingredients

1 kilo of mussels

1 stick celery, finely chopped

1/2 large onion, finely chopped

1 clove garlic, finely chopped

200ml good white wine

Nob of butter

Olive oil

Pinch of salt and pepper

Flat leaf parsley

Method

The only slightly fiddly and time consuming bit about this recipe is cleaning the mussels. If you’re buying from a supermarket they may have been cleaned already (if so, skip the next couple of stages), but if you’ve picked them up at your local fishmonger you may have to do a bit of work yourself.

The things to watch out for are the ‘beard’ on the underside of the mussel, and and any barnacles on the shell. I find the best thing to do is dump the mussels in big bowl / sink of cold water and then get to work. Remove any beards by holding the mussel with the sharper end of the shell pointing towards you, and then pull the beard towards the round end away from you. Any barnacles can be removed by scraping off with a knife.

Whilst you’re doing this, make sure to pick out any mussels that are open. Tap these open ones on a work surface, if they don’t close they are dead and could make you sick if you eat them, so chuck them out. Now your mussels are clean, pop them into an empty bowl and into your fridge.

Next, get a large saucepan (with a lid) on the heat and melt a decent sized nob of butter in a little olive oil. Whilst this is happening, finely chop your celery, onion and garlic. Add these to the pan and gently sweat off for 6 or 7 minutes until translucent.

Now pop your mussels in the pan, discarding any liquid that has drained from them whilst in the fridge (this is water taken on by them when being cleaned – you don’t want this in your pan) and stir them around a bit. Next pour in the white wine, which should immediately start bubbling, season with salt and pepper, and then pop on the lid to steam the mussels for 3 or 4 minutes, occasionally shaking the pan.

When you open the lid, all the mussels have opened, and you’ll be hit by an amazing aroma of the sea and white wine. Scatter over a bit of chopped parsley, and then divide into two bowls, equally distributing both the musels and the fragrant broth.

Serve with a spinach, watercress, rocket and kohlrabi salad with a punchy mustard, lemon juice and olive oil dressing, and lots of crusty French bread.

Bon appétit.

Pretty much anyone who knows me will tell you that I have a mild addiction to Pakistani food, and in particular the tandoori lamb chop. I’d more than happily spend an evening at Mirch Masala in Tooting, or Tayyabs, but my favourite place to get a fix is Lahore in Whitechapel (long overdue a ‘Local Hero’ post). The chops may be a bit smaller, but my god they taste good. Spicy, deeply flavoured and smokey. Yep, my mouth is watering and it’s only 9am.

But enough about my issues. This recipe is my attempt to re-create Lahore’s greatness at home. Funnily enough, I don’t have a tandoor in my kitchen so I use a griddle pan to get the charring and smokey flavour, and whilst this recipe doesn’t quite live up to East London’s finest, it’s not half bad. If you don’t have a griddle pan, you could grill them on both sides.

I use lamb cutlets as opposed to thicker chops, and serve them with a coriander and mint raita.

Ingredients

8 lamb cutlets

(for the marinade)

2 large cloves of garlic

1 thumb sized piece of ginger

2 green chillies, seeds removed

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon chilli powder

1 teaspoon turmeric

1 teaspoon ground coriander

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Juice of 1 lemon

100g natural yoghurt

(for the raita)

100g natural yoghurt

Small handful fresh mint leaves, finely chopped

Small handful fresh coriander leaves, finely chopped

1/2 clove of garlic, finely chopped

Squeeze of lemon juice

Glug of olive oil

Pinch of salt & pepper

Method

The first thing to get sorted is the marinade, for which you’ll need a small blender or hand mixer. You could probably do it in a pestle and mortar, but it would be hard work. In an ideal world, you’re going to marinate the chops over night, but in a worst case scenario, give them at least a couple of hours.

Peel the ginger, take the skin off the garlic and de-seed the chillies before popping them in the blender along with the salt, yoghurt, lemon juice. Next, get your dry spices (cinnamon, cumin, coriander, chilli powder and turmeric) and toast them in a hot pan. You don’t want to burn them, just cook long enough to release their natural oils. A couple of minutes should do it. Now add these to the wet ingredients and blend until you have a smooth mixture.

Place your hops in a bowl, pour the mixture over the chops, and work it into the meat. The mixture is pretty fiery, so I’d suggest that you either use a spoon or latex gloves. Cover the bowl with clingfilm, and then pop it in the fridge over night.

Seeing as you’re all organised, you may as well make the raita now too as this will also benefit from being let to sit over night too. Finely chop the garlic, before mashing it into a paste with your knife blade and a bit of salt. Add this to a small bowl along with the yoghurt, lemon juice, olive oil, a bit of extra salt and a few grindings of black pepper. Finely chop a handful each of coriander and mint leaves, and then add to the bowl and give it a good mix. Cover the bowl with cling film, and stick it in the fridge along with the chops.

And now, the easy bit. Cooking the buggers. The following day, make sure you get your chops and raita out of the fridge at least an hour or two before you cook them. When they’ve reached room temperature, or there abouts, get a griddle pan good and hot, and cook them in batches of 4. Two minutes on each side should do it.

Rest the chops for a few minutes under foil, and then serve with the raita, hot naan or pita bead, and a tomato, red onion, cucumber and fresh herb salad.

Jee haan!!

Nope, not the secret behind the Colonel’s spicy burger (sorry KFC lovers), but a baked chicken dish which makes a great substitute for a Sunday roast. The ingredients might seem a bit summery, but they do a great job of kicking this dark, winter weather where the sun don’t shine. It’s also pretty low maintenance, so you’ll still be able to drink wine, wrap presents, watch the Come Dine With Me omnibus, or whatever else you want to do.

Ingredients (serves 2-3)

6 organic chicken joints, legs and thighs

8 cloves of garlic

20 or so baby plum tomatoes

1 chilli, de seeded and chopped

1 lemon

150ml white wine

Handful of fresh basil leaves

Olive oil

Salt & pepper

1 teaspoon maras biberi / dried chilli flakes

Method

So, like I said this is all pretty easy. First of all, set your oven to 200 c, then put the chicken joints, tomatoes, and the chopped and de-seeded chilli in a roasting tin or oven proof dish. Now take the garlic cloves and smash them up a bit with the flat of a knife blade before adding them to the chicken. Season with a good few grinds of black pepper and a couple of pinches of salt.

Cut the lemon in half, squeeze the juice into the dish, add the lemon husks and then drizzle all over with a generous quantity of olive oil (probably around 50-75ml). Now get your hands in there and toss together, making sure everything is coated in the oil, lemon juice and seasoning.

Finally for now, sprinkle over some maras biberi or dried chilli flakes and then stick the chicken in the oven for 30-35 minutes.

After this time, take out the chicken and add the basil to the dish, tucking the leaves in and around the joints, and then add the white wine. Put the dish back in the oven, and cook for a further 10-15 minutes to burn off the booze and finish off the dish.

After that, you’re done. Serve with some cavalo nero, and hunks of bread to soak up the zingy tomato, lemon and garlic infused gravy.

While we were in France recently, we had a couple of croques, both monsieur and madame, and I think I’ve come to the conclusion that there are few other things I’d rather have as a light lunch. I know you can’t really go wrong with whats essentially posh cheese on toast, but when you add an egg, something good becomes something special.

There are different shapes, sizes and methods, but the common ground is in the cheese which is usually either Emmental or Gruyère (a combination of the two might be rather good), and I prefer the sourdough bread version as opposed the the white processed one.

It’s not rocket science, but there are a couple of touches and flourishes to make your croque extra tasty, so lets crack on.

Ingredients (per serving)

1 large slice of good sourdough bread, sliced about half an inch thick

A handful of grated emmental cheese

2 slices of good quality smoked ham

Dijon mustard

1 egg

Salt & pepper to taste

Method

First of all, get your grill on so it’s nice and hot. Cut a nice large slice from the centre of a loaf, and then lightly toast on both sides.

When this is done, spread some Dijon mustard on one side sparingly before laying the slices of ham on top. Next put the grated cheese on top. Its a good idea to pile the cheese slightly towards the centre, but try and make sure there’s a bit covering the edges to protect them when they’re under the heat.

Sprinkle on a little salt and pepper and then pop under the grill. When you’ve done this, get a frying pan on and cook your egg. By the time it’s done, the cheese on the top of your croque should be golden and bubbling.

Take out, pop on a plate and then slide the egg on top. Serve immediately with salad, or if you’re feeling a bit hungrier, some frites.

Bon appétit.

But thanks to my introduction to banana bread in Australia, those spotty old fruits finally have a use. This recipe uses four of the buggers, and a little kick of rum for background flavour.

Ingredients

4 medium sized ripe bananas (spotty with soft flesh)

250g plain white flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

250g golden caster sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

125g unsalted butter

2 eggs

2 tablespoons dark rum

Method

First up, set your oven set to 175 c and then grease a medium sized (19 x 11 cm) loaf tin with unsalted butter.

Now peel the bananas, discarding any strips of skin, and mash them up in a large bowl until pulped. Mix the butter into the bananas, ensuring it is warm and soft before you do. Next mix in the sugar, vanilla extract, rum and two lightly beaten eggs. You’ll be left with a lumpy, slightly odd looking mixture.

Place a sieve over the bowl and sift the flour and baking powder into it. Stir in gently, being careful not to over mix it, and then pour the batter into the loaf tin.

Pop into the oven, and cook for an hour and fifteen minutes. The reason for the long cooking time is that the mixture is rather wet. This also means that when the loaf is done, the outside will be a pretty dark brown, looking almost burned. Don’t be alarmed, this is how it should be.

After the hour and fifteen, take the tin out, and run a knife into the centre of the loaf. If it comes out clean, it’s ready. If not, pop it back in the oven for another 10 minutes.

If done, leave the banana bread in the tin on one side for 10 minutes or so, and then turn out onto a wire rack to cool. The loaf will sink a bit during cooling, and firm up so it slices better.

The Aussies like to eat if for breakfast toasted and sliced with ricotta, but you can eat it at any time of the day really. I prefer it with just some butter, or maybe a bit of Marscapone.

Image by Michael Fenichel

Hand To Mouth is very happy to say that it’s off to to the South of France for a week.

I will be mostly hanging out in Provence, drinking wine, eating bread and cheese, and checking out a food market or two.

See you en l’autre side.

À bientôt

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

1½ tsp fast-action yeast

1 free-range egg

275ml tepid milk

125g mixed dried fruit

For the topping

2 tbsp plain flour

vegetable oil, for greasing

1 tbsp golden syrup, gently heated, for glazing

Method

For the buns, sieve the flour, salt and ground mixed spice into a large mixing bowl, then rub in the butter using your fingertips creating a breadcrumb like mixture. Make a well in the centre of the mixture, then add the sugar and lemon zest and yeast.

Now beat the egg, add to the flour with the tepid milk and mix together to a form a soft, pliable dough and then turn out the dough onto a lightly floured work surface. Carefully work the mixed dried fruit into the dough until well combined. Knead lightly for at least 5 minutes.

Grease a large mixing bowl with butter. Shape the dough into a ball and place it into the prepared bowl, then cover with a cling film and set aside in a warm place for one hour to prove. Turn out the proved dough onto a lightly floured work surface and knock back the dough. Shape it into a ball again and return it to the bowl, cover again and set aside for a further 30 minutes to rise.

After half an hour, turn out the dough onto a lightly floured work surface and divide it into 12 equal pieces. Roll each piece into a ball, then flatten slightly into a bun shape using the palms of your hands. Cover the buns with the tea towel and set aside to rest for 5-10 minutes.

Grease a baking tray with butter and transfer the buns to the tray. Wrap the tray with the buns on it loosely in greaseproof paper, then place inside a large polythene bag. Tie the end of the bag so that no air can get in and set aside in a warm place for a further 40 minutes to rise.

While this is going on, Preheat the oven to 240 C, then prepare the cross topping by mixing the plain flour to a smooth paste with 2 tablespoons of cold water. When the buns have risen, remove the bag and the greaseproof paper. Spoon the flour mixture into a small plastic bag, nip off the tip of one of the corners to create a piping bag, and pipe a cross across each bun.

Now, transfer the buns to the oven and bake for 10-12 minutes, or until pale golden-brown. As soon as you remove the buns from the oven, brush them with the hot golden syrup, then set aside to cool on a wire rack.

The buns will be very sticky to start with, but the golden syrup will sink in over time. Eat as suggested, toasted with butter and orange marmalade, or however you like them.

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.

After this time the dough will be aerated. Remove it from the bowl and fold on itself once or twice. The dough is stickier than with regular bread, a bit like when making a sourdough, so be prepared to get a bit messy. Using dough scrapers is a good idea. Let the dough rest 15 minutes in the bowl or on the work surface, then try and shape into a ball. Generously coat a tea towel with rye flour, place the dough on the left hand side, scatter the dough with more flour, and then fold the towel over the top to cover it. Let rise for around 2 hours at room temperature, until more than doubled in size.

Preheat your oven to 230°C. Place a cast iron pot in it at least 30 minutes prior to baking to preheat. Once the dough has more than doubled in volume, remove the pot from the oven and put the dough in it. Shake from side to side so it fills the base. Cover with the lid and bake for 30 minutes, then remove the lid and bake for another 20 minutes or so uncovered, until the loaf is nicely browned. Take the loaf out and place on a wire rack to cool. I know this is going to sound a bit sad, but the loaf’s crust crackles as it cools, which is pretty exciting.

When you cut into the loaf, you won’t be disappointed. The crust is crisp, crunchy and satisfying, and the dough inside a cross between really good French bread and a Ciabatta. Honestly, its great. And for so little work. There is such a thing as a free lunch.

Two final notes. I cooked mine in an oval 27 cm pot, but think it would have worked better in the round 24 cm version. Secondly, I tried this recipe again at the weekend substituting the strong white flour with a ‘Farine Bise‘ that I bought in Paris, but it was much less successful. The crust was less impressive, and the dough much heavier. I guess it rises better with the plain white.

UPDATE: Tried the loaf again at the weekend in a smaller pot, with great results. Check out photos on my Flickr page here.

Not surprisingly, I’m still a way off nailing a good imitation, but this bread is pretty tasty, even if I do say so myself, and has a great crust.  The recipe uses an 80 to 20 mix of grey flour and rye flour to add a bit more flavour and texture. If you can’t get grey flour, strong white would do just fine.

Ingredients

400g grey flour

100g rye flour

5g yeast

7g salt

300ml water

1 x teaspoon honey

1 x tablespoon olive oil

Method

First up measure of 300ml of tepid water and mix in the yeast and honey. This should activate it before you add it to the dry ingredients. Next weigh out the flours and mix together with the salt in a big bowl. Now add the water and yeast mixture , the olive oil and mix together. As you mix, the mixture should come together to to form a dough. You’ll have to get your hands in there to combine everything.

Once you’ve done this, turn the mixture out onto a lightly floured work surface and knead for at least 10 minutes. Everyone has their own technique, but this video should get you started. Why do you need to knead? The short answer is that it develops gluten, which makes the mixture ’stronger’ so that it can trap the carbon dioxide that the yeast creates and makes the bread rise. If you don’t knead enough, or your yeast is inactive, you’ll end up with a very dense, heavy loaf.

After kneading for 10 minutes, form the dough into a round ball. See my previous focaccia recipe for the technique for doing this. Once prepared, either place the dough in a proving basket in a lightly floured tea towel, or in a bowl inside a plastic bag  and allow it to rise. This will take about an hour during which time the dough should have doubled in size. When you’ve got to this stage, turn out the dough, ‘knock it back’ (again see the focaccia recipe), form into a round again and repeat the rising process.

When the dough is twice the size again, turn it out and knock it back again. This time roll the dough into a cigar shape, and then flatten it. This should leave you with a strip a little over a foot long. Now fold this strip over end on end, so it becomes a third of the length and flatten down. Tuck the longer sides under with the edge of your palms to create a cylinder tapered at either end. Transfer this onto a floured board or peel, cover with a tea towel and leave to ‘prove’ for about an hour.

Now turn on your oven as hot as it will go, and place a baking tray at the bottom. Just like with the focaccia, you’re going to fill this with boiling water when you bake the loaf. When the oven is up to temperature, the loaf should have swelled to double it’s size again. Slash the surface of it (which will help the bread rise), and then slide it into the oven after putting the water in the baking tray. Don’t hang about.

Bake at full temperature for 10 minutes, at which point the bread will have risen as much as it’s is going to as the crust will have ’set’ and should be golden brown. Turn the oven down to around 170 / 180 and bake for a further 20 – 25 minutes, depending on how hot your oven is.

After the full 35 minutes, remove the bread and place on a baking tray. Resist the temptation to cut into it now. The bread is still cooking, and if you cut it open you’ll release heat and steam, and the bread won’t finish cooking properly. And that’s it. When it’s cooled, slice and eat with whatever you fancy.

I had the good fortune to be in Cornwall for Christmas, and then Paris for New Years. Good food was eaten accross the festive period, more on this in subsequent posts, but first of all something for the bread geeks out there.

Whilst in Paris I made a pilgrimage to Poilâne. It may not be a familiar name, but if you love good bread it should be. It’s a bakery in Saint-Germain, and makes the most insanely tasty ‘miche’ or traditional French sourdough loaves. Set up by Pierre Poilâne, a young baker from Normandy in 1932, the shop has been knocking out these beautiful large round loaves ever since to Parisians hungry for something a bit more interesting than the regular baguette.

The bread gets it’s darker colour and deeper flavour from stone milled ‘grey’ flour, also known as T80 or ‘farine bise’. The only other ingredients are sea salt, water and sourdough starter that is derived from batches of bread prepared all those years ago. The loaves are shaped by hand, and then cooked in a wood fired oven.

The bakery is still in the family, run by Pierre’s granddaughter, the rather marvelously named Apollonia Poilâne. They now have a second store in Paris, and have more recently opened one in London. As well as half a loaf, I bought some flour from the shop in an attempt to re-create a Poilâne miche at home. Thus far my sourdough attempts have been less than successful, but hopefully a bit of French inspiration will help lift them. You can find out more abut Poilâne and the locations on their website here, and I’ll update you on my baking succeses / failures as they happen

Then I came across ‘River Cottage Bread’; a small but sensible handbook on the subject, which has basically become my bread bible. The book contains lots of recipes for breads from standard loaves, to ciabatta, naan and beyond, which are great, but for me the most interesting part of the book is the more practical stuff.

From my limited experience, it seems to me that once you’ve got the basics of making dough down, you can freestyle to a certain extent. But the stuff that is more rigid, and vital to creating consistently good bread, are the techniques and tips, and thats why this  book has become so invaluable.

For example, the book explains that you need to try and re-create the conditions of a bakers bread oven as closely as possible in your own home. It recommends that as well as having your oven as high as possible for the initial baking process, that you should also have a tray of boiling water in the oven to generate steam, as this creates optimum conditions for the bread to rise. This is the sort of stuff that you don’t discover by trial error, and kind of need to know. As you might expect, there’s also lots of practical advice on rising, proving, how to prepare your dough properly for the oven and so on.

The other great thing about the book is that it has kept me motivated to keep baking. It’s honest with you, and manages your expectations. You’re not going to produce a Poilane loaf on your first attempt. Like most things in life, baking bread takes practice, but if you stick at it your results improve quickly. I’ve created a bit of a visual document of my progress over on my Flickr account.

If you want to get a copy, you can get one from River Cottage or Amazon here.