Coffee cake & pizza

Hi folks,

I have had a busy weekend, baking a lot for my kids. Weekends are great because you can take your time in the kitchen and get even better results.

I baked some pitta breads and cheese topped baguettes on Sunday. But the kids were more excited and impressed by Saturday’s efforts.

First of all I baked a lovely coffee cake.

I didn’t have any walnuts so I used pecan nuts and they were delicious. And I was going to put marshmallows in the centre but had none of those either so used the sugar balls instead.

Then I started on the main course. This was homemade pizza and garlic bread. I usually make 4 pizzas with the following toppings: cheese and tomato, chorizo/pepperoni, tuna and sweetcorn and chicken tikka. I also include some roasted vegetables too – normally on half the pizza so any veg averse people can avoid them!! I served these with freshly baked garlic bread and a nice dressed salad. Yummy!

What did you bake this weekend? I’d love you to share your efforts. Until next time…

Flour – the basis of any good bread part 2

So, to continue on from my previous post: the carbohydrates are used as fuel by the yeast, the proteins bond to form the all important gluten strands, and the minerals are used to strengthen the gluten strands. The oil helps to maintain moisture thus keeping your bread softer for longer.

Delving a bit deeper into the science of bread making (sorry!), something happens when water is added to flour and that is the formation of gluten. Gluten is formed by the bonding of two proteins, gliadin and glutenin. Gluten is an elastic protein that can be really stretched to form long strands. The more it is worked, the longer and stretchier it becomes. These strands form a complex mesh which helps to trap carbon dioxide bubbles produced by yeast, thus creating gas bubbles inside your dough. This is the process you are encouraging when kneading your dough, so as you can hopefully appreciate, well kneaded dough is a prerequisite for a well-formed loaf.

This is just a quick post as I am quite busy today, so next time I will describe the main types of flour and what the differences are. Until then…

Flour – the basis of any good bread

Bread only has four basic ingredients although others can be added. The four main ingredients are flour, yeast, salt and water.

Flour is by far the most important ingredient so try to buy the best organic flour you can afford. Wheat prices have soared recently, but remember, the cost of a loaf made at home is roughly half that of shop bought bread.

Check for any additives especially with white flour, as they may have bleaching agents added to make them whiter – how pointless! If you can find it, organic stoneground flour is best.

Wheat flour is the most common type of flour in the UK. A grain of wheat is actually a seed consisting of 3 parts: bran, germ and endosperm. The bran is the tough outer skin, the germ is the embryonic wheat plant and the endosperm is used as a food source by the germ in early development. The bran is a rich source of protein, the germ a good source of vitamins, and the endosperm a great source of carbohydrates, plus some protein, minerals and oil.

Why is this important?  Well, all these components have an effect on the bread making process, and as a scientist myself I like to understand what is going on during the process, and in this way you will give the whole task more respect. Also, understanding what your kneading is doing will almost certainly make you a better baker. I will explain a little more next time…

Snow, snow and more snow

Hi folks,

Well last weekend we had a fair bit of snow up where I live and this is the perfect excuse to stay indoors and get baking!

So that is exactly what I did, baking up a batch of cheese topped tomato and herb rolls.

These were quickly followed by a couple of tasty white loaves.

What excuse (if any) do you need to get your apron on? I’d love to know.

Till next time……

More sourdough

Hi again,

Been having a real sourdough phase at the moment, especially sourdough rye bread. If you want the recipe you can find it here. I made this loaf with half white bread flour and half rye flour to make it slightly lighter.

I really like the combination of the slightly sour taste of sourdough with the nutty flavour from the rye flour. It makes a slightly denser loaf with a nice chewy crust and is great warm from the oven and covered in butter or dipped in some delicious home-made soup. As the rising times are long it is best to leave sourdough baking till the weekend.

I also baked a cracking apple pie which went down really after our Sunday lunch (roast pork) with a dollop of lightly whipped cream. You’ll need to go for a brisk walk after this lunch!!

My first book!!

Well folks I have actually written my first book. This has been a real labour of love for me and was sparked off by friends and family nagging me! So I took some time out, took loads of pictures and compiled what I think is a pretty good book showing you all the fundamentals required to bake great bread at home.

I have written it so that it will (hopefully) appeal to experienced bakers and novices alike.

I have published the book on Amazon kindle and will be branching out and selling on other platforms in the future.

To have a look: (UK readers click here)

                           (International readers click here)

- and if you like it please free to buy it .

I would ask you all to please have a look at least and if anyone does borrow/buy it I would love some constructive feedback.

I am not a writer or salesperson, just a passionate baker who believes that good bread should be an important part of our lives and am trying in my own little way to do just that.

Right, enough about that. My next post will be about my “pimped” Victoria sponge. Till then…

The baker’s percentage

Last week was half term in the UK so the kids were off school. Kids love to bake cakes so much fun was had in the kitchen by all .

I spent Saturday baking more sourdough. It is so good but I can only bake it at weekends because it is a long process . However the resulting bread is well worth it so if you haven’t tried it yet, please get a starter going and give it a go.

Today I want to share the recipe formula to which I work with all my breads. This is commonly known as the baker’s percentage and it is a good idea to commit this to memory. Don’t worry; soon the figures will be second nature.

The formula is:

Strong flour = 100%

Water = 60%

Salt = 2%

Yeast = 1%

To explain the above formula, take the weight of flour you are using as 100%. For ease, let’s say you are using 1kg of flour. This is the batch size I prefer as you can get two large or 3 small loaves from this size. Every other ingredient will be weighed as a percentage of 1kg.

In this case you will need 600ml of water. You can weigh the water if you wish (I do), as 1ml = 1g. You may need to use more water when working with wholemeal flour as it tends to absorb more water. You may need to go up to 65%, but start at 60% and then add more water, 1 tablespoon at a time, if required.

Weigh out 20g of salt for a batch this size.

Weigh out 10g yeast for a batch this size.

So for your basic 1kg batch of dough you will need:

Strong flour = 100% = 1kg

Water = 60% = 600ml

Salt = 2% = 20g

Yeast = 1% = 10g

If you stick to these percentages you can’t really go wrong and it makes it much easier to experiment. Just keep to these ratios and add some exciting ingredients such as olives, sun-dried tomatoes, fried onions, fresh herbs etc. and you will get great results every time plus you will get breads you won’t find in the shops! Knowing this formula really does give you the freedom and confidence to experiment so please memorise it.

Finally, just a quick update on my new guide to baking. It is pretty much finished now. I am just putting the final touches to it and adding some of my favourite recipes. This has been a real labour of love for me. If you are interested in getting a copy keep an eye out as I will be releasing it pretty soon. If you want to make sure you don’t miss it you can opt in to be notified here

And as the kids are back to school I can finally relax…!!!!

Baking stones

Well I finally got around to buying a couple of new baking stones last week and boy what a difference! I had forgotten how much difference baking on a stone makes. It is the nearest thing to creating the fierce heat from a wood fired oven in your kitchen.

Using a stone ensures that you get a great crispy base but more importantly you get a fantastic oven spring, far better than you can get on a baking sheet. I used them on Saturday to bake numerous pizzas with assorted toppings and the ones I used came with a metal stand so you could use them to serve the pizza straight from the oven whilst keeping the pizza warm. This went down really well with the kids!

You can get a great pizza stone here and here are a couple of good books for creating great pizza.

Pizza dough is easy to make and is so much better than shop bought. I tend to make mine with half strong flour and half plain flour or half semolina flour for a more authentic base.

On Sunday I baked some rolls – topped with cheese and a few topped with sesame seeds. They were so light and delicious!

I have to say that my baking stones have reinvigorated my passion for baking and if you don’t have one you really are missing out. So go on…treat yourself to one and you won’t regret it.

Baking and the future!

Well I hope you all had a good weekend.

We baked a German friendship cake at the weekend. It is one of these cakes where you feed it for 7 days (a bit like producing a sourdough starter) with flour, sugar and water. After the 7 days are up you split it into equal quantities, keep one portion for yourself and pass the others on . You then add apples and raisins to the cake mix and bake. It was quite nice, a cross between a fruit cake and a fruit bread – it looked like a sponge but had the smell of bread!

A colleague asked me about bread baking the other day with regards to gluten and kneading. I explained it to her and pointed her to my article post here. I think it does a good job in explaining the role gluten plays in the bread making process.

I have been evaluating my life lately. I have a good well paid job but I REALLY want to open up my own small family run bakery where everything is hand baked on site. There is a bakery already in my village but it is not a “real” bakery – the bread is baked off site and is the same boring white tin loaf you find everywhere.

My family is very supportive and I think they like the idea of us all working together but it is a big step to take and  the current financial climate makes it quite risky but it is what I want to do. Perhaps it is just a dream at this stage but you never know – watch this space!

I also write information products and ebooks as I love to help people. In fact I have pretty much finished my bread baking e-book. It is a step by step guide to baking bread at home, showing you how to be a successful home baker. If you would like to know more just put your name down here. I will be giving a few copies away to my newsletter subscribers before I release it so if you haven’t signed up to my newsletter you can do it here (and remember you get a free report).

Have any of you followed your dreams? I would love to know as I need some inspiration and maybe that gentle nudge to just do it. If I was a single person I wouldn’t hesitate but things get more complicated when you have a family!

I hope you have a great week and get baking.

Weekend baking is great!

Well today is Chinese New Year so: “Kung Hei Fat Choy and Xin Nian Kuai Le!”

I have had quite a productive weekend. I have been quite busy in the kitchen baking a variety of good things. I baked an apple and ginger pie for our Sunday lunch. Can you believe that it was the first apple pie I have ever made!!!! And it was sooooo good, the ginger really gave it a nice bit of heat. I also baked some delicious (and quite frankly huge) Yorkshire puddings to go with our roast beef. I would’ve taken a picture of them but they were so big I would’ve needed a wide-angle lens to fit them in!!

My favourite baking of the weekend still revolved around bread. I always bake some crusty rolls at the weekend but this time I also baked some ciabatta and we had some delicious Panini’s. I love ciabatta but it takes a good few hours from start to finish but is so worth it. This is a recipe which I will be putting in a future issue of my newsletter. Last weeks issue had a recipe for the classic French sweet bread Brioche. If you would like the recipe just sign up here and I will send you my FREE guide and this weeks issue.

Although my first love is bread I am getting more interested in pastry baking. I think it is the tactile part of making your own pastry that I enjoy and I just can’t resist a good pie whether it is sweet or savoury.

Before I go here is a picture of a couple of my ciabatta loaves.  

 

 

Have a great week…