A Little Less Hot

Cool Chile Co haven’t had chipotles in stock for months and I finally got round to phoning to see why. The EU have banned the import of chipotle chiles from Mexico. How come I didn’t know this? Why wasn’t I told? Where are the street protests? What’s more, the suggestion is that the problem will […]

Some Like it Hot

On the right: 1 x bottleTabasco @ 57ml On the left: 3 litres Mick’s Patent Fermented Scotch Bonnet Salsa Plus an additional 1 litre not pictured = the equivalent of 70 bottles of Tabasco – maturing as we speak.

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Home tomorrow already. It’s not fair. So the landlord brought us some apples from his friend’s tree – great big Russets. They were so big I thought they would be mushy but they were firm with a really good sourish flavour. Continuing the enriched dough theme it had to be apple brioche. I was going […]

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Seem to be going through an enriched dough phase: I’d been half-thinking for some time about converting a Dan Lepard formula for Tahini Butter Buns from Comptoir Libanais. Finally tracked down some tahini in Bordeaux. There’s a little corn flour in the mix, milk, eggs, tahini, butter and sugar. They came out fantastically light and […]

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Sorry Ben but the rest of the brioche dough came out of the fridge this morning and became two burger buns and a brioche aux jambon so I’m going to have to knock up another dough for the pizza. This is what I love about France – a simple plate of totally refreshing crudites as […]

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This is Ben’s fault for mentioning brioche. Put the local fresh figs to good use in a Brioche aux Figues et Chevre. What can you say other than yum? Just the brioche burger buns to come plus a try-out as a pizza base.

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The remaining dough from the Fig & Serrano batch after having been in the fridge for a further 24 hours. I’m doing this to wind up my friend Rick. On his website Mairs Bakehouse he says this: “We never use refrigeration to elongate our bread making process. This method we feel only increases the ‘sour’ […]

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We don’t seem to treat holidays like other people. For a start off we don’t regard them as holidays: they are periods of time when you live somewhere else, get all the crap out of your head and try to regain your sanity – and possibly a little creative energy. For us France is a […]

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Second bread – same dough:That’s a bit miraculous. After I removed enough dough for the pizzas the remainder went back in the fridge for another 24 hours. Late yesterday afternoon it came out of the fridge had a rough-and-ready shape and was in the oven ten minutes later. It actually rose: And, for your in […]

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And the first bread out of the oven is …….. pizza!! Ran up some 80% hydration dough using T65 flour and wacked it in the fridge for a couple of days. Another year, another oven – a second nasty little microwave/convection oven. So, trying to improve on last year’s efforts I did the bases in […]