Sourdough bread - 1st attempt

Inspired by some fellow bloggers I decided it was about time I tried my hand at making sourdough bread. Me being me I wanted to make my own leaven. Goodness there are so many methods out there for making a starter, it's soooo confusing. After having rave reviews on several blogs, I settled on Dan Lepard's leaven recipe (I found that at Gillthepainter's blog.) At the same time I reserved Dan's book 'The handmade Loaf' at the local library, thankfully it arrived just in time to make my first loaf.

After feeding and caring for the baby for eight days, it seemed to the untrained eye ready to use. It was doubling in size every day, there were bubbles on the surface, surely it must be ripe.

I used the White leaven bread recipe and religiously followed the instructions. What a labor of love this sourdough bread making is, a whole day to make two loaves of bread!

Actually I think it kind of worked, not the best example but it wasn't a total brick and the taste was not too bad either. By now my starter is 11 days old and last night for the first time the starter was frothy, I think it's now ready to use.



Apparently you are suppose to name your starter. As I don't want to break with tradition I've named it in honour of my Dad 'Kev'. He was a pastry cook and loved to bake and a great inspiration to me.

Kev - late 40's or early 50's. It looks like he's icing either a wedding cake or a very large Christmas cake

Have a great day


Lisa

Today part 2

OK so maybe I was a tad over ambitious about how much I could achieve today. If I'd stuck to my original plan everything would have been done. Things started to fall apart when I decided to make Tomato Ketchup as well as passata. I still have 2kg of tomatoes to be used and the pickled beetroot, well there's always tomorrow. As for the movie, that will have to wait till the weekend.

Left to right - passata, tomato ketchup and orange & passion fruit cordial

citrus lemonade and light wholemeal & chia loaf

I'll post the recipes soon, it's very late, I'm pooped and I have to work tomorrow.

A very big thank you to Sonya, it worked.....yay!!!

Cheers and goodnight

Lisa

What a week

Lots of tears, difficult choices, time for reflection, remembering the happy times, kind words and thoughts from friends

I've finally made my way back after the past week, who would have thought a gimpy black lab could have made such an impact on my life. Thank you Utah, you were a blessing from the angels.

A big thanks to those who left comments this week, especially to Sue and Wendy for the wonderful poems about the loss a beloved furry friend.

I managed to do a little baking yesterday, the usual loaf of bread - light wholemeal and oat.



Special request from Tony was a fruit cake. I thought I'd give my Nana's favourite boiled fruit cake recipe a whirl, its been years since I've made this.

Here it is, the recipe was either cut out of The Courier Mail or The Telegraph and stuck on a piece of cardboard from a shoebox.



Click on the picture for the recipe. If you have problems reading it let me know.
A few notes on the recipe - I used 1/2 cup of chopped walnuts, line the cake tin with two layers of paper, brown paper if possible. Daph cooked her cake at 350F/180C degrees, I would try 160C as the cake started to brown and cook to quickly. I cooked it for about an hour and 15 minutes.



If you fancy a little buttery french goodness then pop over to Down to Earth Forum and check out my Brioche tutorial in Adventures in Bread Making.



Hope you have a lovely day
Cheers
Lisa

Baking day

Today's bread is a light wholemeal and oat loaf.

295ml water / 1 1/4 cups*
25g butter / 2 tbpns*
6g salt / 1 tsp*
375g flour / 3 cups* I used half wholemeal
40g rolled oats / 1/2 cup*
25g brown sugar / 2 tbspns
6g active dry yeast / 1 1/2 tsp*

*American measurments

The original recipe is made in a bread machine. I just used the bread maker today for mixing and proving, then shaped by hand and baked in the oven. If you made it entirely by hand I think you would have to adjust the amount of water as it produced a very soft dough.

I think this would be a big hit with kids, its not too heavy, nice texture and seems to stay soft and fresh, lovely for sandwiches.


Hope you have a lovely day
Lisa

A little op shopping and baking

Whilst on holidays this past week I took the opportunity to scour the local op shops for treasures. Well I wasn't disappointed, here are some of my recent finds.

The two pieces of fabric on the left I got for free, 50 cents for the pattern - 1973 vintage, an angora/lambs wool jumper for $3.50 (I'm planning on felting it), 1m of 50's original bark cloth - $1.00!!! and a bunch of doilies and a vintage sheet for $5.00 (going to make them into curtains)

I also spied a 3 seater lounge, reduced to $75. It just needs new covers on the cushions to bring it back to life. I'm still working on the other half to agree with that purchase. The cats have ruined our lounge suit with their scratching, so it needs replacing. To be honest I really don't like the style of it anyway.

Yesterdays baking, Lunchbox biscuits and bread. The biscuits didn't turn out as I had expected, going by the photo in the cookbook. Anyway they taste great and made a large batch.
I thought I'd try something a little different with the bread and made a plait loaf for a change.

I just love the jar with the red lid, another market find for $1.00

Hope you've had a lovely day
Cheers Lisa

Baking

On Sunday I decided to make a date loaf for morning tea and lunches. Well what a disaster that turned out to be. I mean really, how do you stuff up a date loaf? Anyway I'm blaming the homemade baking powder for the rapid rise and fall. All was not lost, I cut out the soggy bit in the middle and the remaining cake tastes great.

After my date loaf disaster I thought it best to stick to baking bread for the day. I write a monthly bread baking tutorial over at Down to Earth Forum. This month I've looked at using different types of flour in bread making. While I love fresh white bread with lashings of butter and Vegemite, nothing beats a loaf with seeds and grains for extra flavour and texture. So here is today's baking- wholemeal, rye and spelt rolls.

Maybe later in the week I'll attempt another cake. I've got some pears sitting in the fruit bowl that would make a lovely tea cake. Sounds like a great idea!