11.45 a.m.

Look at that, all wrapped and ready (by Sue) before lunch. I mixed on Wednesday lunchtime, fermented at room temperature till about six, scaled, shaped and put in the boxes, proved overnight in the fridge. 5.oo a.m. they came out of the fridge and the first batch went in the oven an hour and a […]

8.45 a.m.

Quarter to nine, everything’s out of the oven. Can actually have breakfast and a bath.

5.15 a.m.

It must be Christmas.

Weird Moroccan Bread

A wheat intolerant guest coincided with a middle eastern meal yesterday which could only mean Kalinté, Moroccan flatbread made with chickpea flour from Paula Wolfert’s book of Moroccan Food. You make a batter of an egg, a couple, of tablespoons of olive oil, a litre of lukewarm water, 350g of gram flour and a couple […]

Autolyse

Been meaning to try this for ages. Mixed two campagne doughs to produce 1K loaves. Held back the salt in one dough for 30 minutes. Apart from that both doughs had three short kneads after mixing and went in the fridge overnight. First surprise. Next morning the autolysed dough had very noticeably risen more than […]

That Dough – Again

This is also weird – the fascination with one straightforward wet, white dough. This is the 80ish% hydration dough that I use primarily for pizza which started through a miscalculation of a yeasted dough from The Bread Collective – a confusion of US/Metric/Imperial cups, that sort of thing. Usually I knock it up and put […]

Weird Dutch Bread II

Gert’s been made homeless. Stupid, stupid politicians. The geezer who owned the B&B that Gert was managing and where he ran his restaurant is an Australian guy in his sixties. He’s lived in the UK for years, has been a successful businessman and generally contributed to the good of the country. But his permit to […]

Butters’ Bakery

As well as the crucial matter of pressing the apples, another reason Gill & Jay invited a couple of friends over for the weekend is they are setting up a new microbakery and the equipment is in place! Unlike my stumbling into bakedom an additional kilo of flour at a time, Jay has actually done […]

Scrattin’/Pressin’

Who but Jay would have so many boomerangs he can spare some for kindling? However, let’s start with the cider as I always suggest when I’m at Jays. Who but Jay would have a Romany caravan full of apples? One of the main aims of the weekend was to get his apples into liquid form […]

Bakin’/Scrattin’ Live from Jay’s 1

This weekend there’s a little gathering at Gill & Jay’s in Trefriw – not sure the percentage of cidermaking to baking but that’s what we’re doing. Just to be efficient I got my baking in first. Thursday was Thanksgiving so the famous Bethesdabakers Thanksgiving bread had to be produced for the American customers who also […]