adventures in baking - meet Wilbur

 

 

 Over the summer I've been making sour dough bread (recipe from here) Jessie and I made our starter by 'catching' a wild yeast and with regular feeding Wilbur, our starter dough has become a bit of a family pet. A yummy, bubbly, edible pet.

 

The night before I bake I make up the sponge with a 100ml of Wilbur and some warm water. I mix and leave covered overnight. The next morning I add more flour and some sea salt and oil then knead for 10 minutes or so.  Son (or daughter) of Wilbur then gets to spend all day rising slowly and surely before being baked ready for tea.

When I get the loaf out of the oven I wrap it in a clean tea towel to soften the crust a bit and leave for about 30 minutes before we devour it... with mature cheddar, home made chutneys and pickles and butter... yum...

adventures in bread ~ part one

For a while now I've made bread occasionally with the help of a bread maker but more recently I've been excited by the prospect of proper homemade bread.

We went to an End of Summer Bonfire (any excuse to eat el fresco!) taking homemade bread, chutneys and potatoes to bake in the fire.

I made a tomato and basil tear and share bread. It's like a savoury chelsea bun. Once you proved the dough roll it out fairly thinly into a rectangle on lightly floured board. Then cover with thick tomato sauce or tomato puree (nothing too wet or it makes it sloppy) Then sprinkle over cheese, tear some fresh basil and scatter it over the tomato base. I used a mixture of local mature cheddar and mozzarella (heresy I know to add the cheddar but oh so tasty!) Then de-seed some tomatoes and dice them into small cubes and scatter those over the top too.

Now roll up the dough length ways until you have a yummy sausage  of doughy loveliness then using a sharp knife cut into inch long (2.5cm) slices.

Place these slices cut side up into a well oiled roasting dish, given them a little room to expand. Scatter with more cheese. Cover the roasting dish with a clean tea towel and leave to prove until big and puffy. Meanwhile preheat the oven to 230C.

When the oven is ready put the bread in give it a bit of a spray of water to help it rise and get crusty.
Cook for 20 minutes until the bread is risen and hollow sounding when you tap it.

Leave to cool a bit on a wire rack until it is warm. Lovely with soup, salad or for munching on it's own...

the end of summer

Bye Bye Summer.

Hello meals around the bonfire in the dark. 

We listened to the owls, watched the toads by the pool, gazed at the stars and talked long into the night. It's sad summer is going but so exciting to be embracing a new season. Hello Autumn and all that you will bring us.

time for lunch

It's snack plate season once more. Jago is doing that (almost) 3 year old thing  about being tricky at meal times. Trouble is there is so much to do other than eating, and what he wants to do is much more interesting. You know, tractors, fire engines, drawing, reading, mud pies, running around, Welly wanging, shouting 'run away' when anyone suggests coming to the table for a meal... 

So themed meals are the order of the day - the one above is a meal around the sun (though Jago said the sun needed ears so stuck his cucumber in his cream cheese) I make sure that everything is Jago sized, quick to eat and he helps too. So far we're winning but for how long.....?

:: Last Friday ::

Last Friday I woke up to a Royalist in the house. Now we're not really royalists or republicans - it's not something we think about but Jess had decided that she was going to spend the day dressed as a princess and watch every second of that wedding. So any excuse for a party followed and a spot of tea, cake and (say it quietly) britishness.....

marmalade

Marmalade is a wonderful thing - though my sister will disagree. I have finally managed to make our yearly batch using beautiful organic sevilles from Riverford and the recipe from here. I've made enough for us to enjoy and some to share - can't wait 'til breakfast!