Trefriw 2012 – in Living Colour

In recovery mode after a great baking weekend at Trefriw Rugby Club. My tiredness stems from having to drink Jay’s cider to blot out the never ending tennis from Wimbledon on every screen in the club. But having organised two events in the past I know how exhausted our two magnificent hosts must be, Joe […]

Buns 2 [(Scraps 3) Pizza 7]

Same pizza dough, 24 hrs in the fridge. Tipped the dough onto well floured surface carefully keeping rectangular shape. Cut off half and divided half in two to form two pizzas. Floured the other half, carefully divided into eight with floured scraper (no weighing, no shaping). Baked immediately in hot oven about 12/13 minutes: Not […]

Doughflow2

The overnight cascading dough became 26 large Potato, Rosemary & Black Onion Seed loaves (Dan Lepard if I remember correctly) of which these are two:

Doughflow

I remember years ago someone on a bread forum asking if covering a proving dough with a tea towel would impede it’s rising. Ho, ho, ho!: This sight can be a bit scary early in the morning the first time it happens. These dough boxes were less than half full when they went in the […]

Bread Tasting

All roads lead to Bethesda as the Druids used to say. And so it was that Rick and Maggie Coldman – Mair’s Bakehouse – came to lunch en route from Hamburg to Cwmduad bearing a big bag of goodies from German bakeries. The pastries got scoffed for breakfast before the camera came out but look […]

Buns

Still messing about with the pizza dough here that I try to have available all the time in the fridge. Turned half into a great pizza yesterday, divided the remainder into four, shaped roughly, flattened and put back in the fridge for a second 24 hours. I think burger buns are tricky. In restaurants 99% […]

Le Pain Quotidien (2)

Flying in formation – Nina’s Danish Peasant Bread. She is a great blender of flours. This one is mainly wholemeal rye with some white and wholemeal wheat + 120% white levain. Nestling in the top is Phoebe the dog’s share and a small Simple Danish Rye taster (another Nina recipe), left-over dough from this week’s […]

Ciabatta 1 [(Scraps2) Pizza 6]

Same pizza dough as in Scraps below. 48hrs in fridge. Sunday a.m., woken by Christians ringing church bells at 7.45 a.m. (*!+@!!”#$%^&*!!!). Turned on oven, tipped dough onto flour surface, cut into four, roughly shaped, stretched, put on baking paper. When oven up to heat, dimpled, baked 20 mins = ciabatta (or are they jamless […]

Euro Twenty Twelve

It’s OK. You are on the right blog. Honest. Is it possible to get bored with baking? That’s a big question but, when you have a customer like Gert, it’s quite difficult. As you will know from previous posts, Gert runs Oren, his little restaurant in Caernarfon. Normally his menu zooms from one country to […]

Not a Pretty Sight

Being in France with no scales has given me the bug for experimenting and improvising. Beginners particularly are forever asking what to do with excess starter. Ditch it, I would say. I probably use more flour for dusting than a lot of people use for baking. Most of this ends up in the bin anyway […]