Baked Alaska, at Last

As well as the mis-shapen olive loaves I planned on finally making a proper sized Baked Alaska, at last. I had found a recipe in Rachel Allen's Bake and decided to make the base the night before.
Rachel called it a biscuit base which seemed weird to me as I remember a sponge base from my mothers baked alaska, but I ploughed on thinking Rachel knows better than me.

Ingredients:
For Base:
25g butter
25g caster sugar
1 egg yolk
Half a tsp vanilla extract
60g flour
Pinch baking powder
Meringue:
3 egg whites
Pinch of cream of tartar
200g caster sugar
and 1 litre good quality ice-cream.

Already looking at the ingredients for the base I had my doubts, very small quantities so it won't be very thick, but.... Cream the butter until soft, add the sugar and beat until light and fluffy. Add the egg yolk and vanilla extract and beat until combined. Sift the flour and baking powder and mix until it forms a dough. Put it in clingfilm and put in the fridge for about 30 minutes. I rolled out the dough to the size required, but it's here that my doubts gathered steam. Rachel said to roll it until it was 1cm thick. If I'd done that I would have been making a mini one again so I rolled it to the size I needed and it was about 3mm thick. In fact, it was a biscuit. But looking at the picture in the book the base was definitely thicker. I went ahead and baked it but all the while thinking this can't be right.
After sleeping on it I decided to ditch the thin base and make a sponge, your basic 125g butter/sugar/self-raising flour with 2 eggs and vanilla extract baked for about 20 minutes at 180. That was more like it.
To get the ice cream into a dome shape you leave it out of the freezer to soften and then transfer to a bowl about an inch smaller than your base. Mould it into the dish, smooth the top and pop back in the freezer until you need it.
When you are ready to assemble take the ice cream out of the freezer. Put your base on to a baking tray. Whisk the egg whites until they form soft peaks, add half the sugar and the cream of tartar and whisk until stiff peaks form. Add the rest of the sugar and fold in with a metal spoon. Ease the ice cream on to the base and quickly cover with the meringue making sure you cover right down to the base. Bake in the oven at 220 for about 4 minutes until the meringue is set and pale gold. Serve to expressions of great awe from your guests!

Bread Mis-Shapes

Just when you think you've mastered something it throws you a curve ball and you realise that there is a lot more to learn. I know I've only been making bread for a few months but I was starting to feel confident. Shows what I know!
With friends coming over for lunch last Sunday I wanted to show them how I had progressed in the bread-making stakes and as I was making a lamb tagine I thought a nice olive bread would go a long way to soaking up those spicy juices.
The dough was a rye dough (400g Strong White Flour and 100g Rye with 10g yeast, 10g salt and 350g water). The olive part comes from olive paste which is easily made. Take a jar of olives (in this case black), drain and then whizz up with some herbs (thyme, basil and oregano) and a dash of extra virgin olive oil. Easy.
Once the dough has rested for an hour you divide it into three (this qty makes three loaves). Take each one in turn and flatten, spread about a tablespoon of your olive paste over it and then shape into a loaf. They then rest until they have doubled in size. So far so easy.
The problem arose when I tried to transfer the loaves to the baking stone in the oven. Without the aid of a peel (a spade-like wooden implement used to transfer dough to the oven) the first loaf just collapsed on me and I had to quickly re-shape it and chuck it on the stone. I then decided that a baking tray would be the best option for the other two but loaf number two wasn't having any of it and it collapsed. I fashioned it into another shape and managed to get loaf number three onto the baking tray without too much damage. What a palaver! Then then baked for about 20 minutes and came out as you see them above, three very different loaves! Despite that they went down ok with the guests, I guess looks don't matter so much when it comes down to it.

Pizza Night

Sorry about the gap in posting, I had a week of London Book Fair and then a week of catching up and no time for baking or blogging. Work getting in the way of life again!
Now that I have mastered the basics of the dough making I am branching out into other dough-based food items other than bread. With that in mind I decided to try my hand at pizza last weekend. I chose my toppings first (mozzarella, pepperoni and basil) a classic combo I felt.
The dough is an olive dough, similar to the focaccia that I made recently, although it does call for pizza flour but I just used my normal strong white flour. Ingredients are pretty much the same as usual but you replace 50g of the water with olive oil then knead and leave to rest for an hour. After an hour you then make it into the pizza base, I went for a rectangle. I had some problems stretching the dough, it wasn't having it so I had to flatten it with gusto which meant that it was a bit thin in the middle and the crust was a bit too thick. But who doesn't like a thick crust?
For the tomato base I dry roasted a couple of tomatoes in the oven with some herbs and a smidgen of olive oil (about 30 minutes at 180) then whizzed them up. Spread this on the base and then layered up all the other toppings. Then it's in the oven at 200 for about 20 minutes until the crust is browned and risen and the toppings are sizzling.
Tell you what, it beats Domino's, Pizza Express, Pizza Hut and all the rest into a cocked hat! By that I mean it was most enjoyable!

Watch That Dough Rise!

On Sunday I wanted to make something, either bread (I made a raisin and caraway loaf on Saturday) or a cake. After extensive cookbook searching I landed on a bread from Rachel Allen's Bake, a Cardamom Bread. This recipe is a bit more of a phaff than the ones I have been using but never being one to shy away from new bread making experiences I ploughed on.
Ingredients:
125ml Water
75g Butter
50g Caster Sugar plus and extra tsp
175ml warm water
15g Fresh Yeast (I'm only giving you this option!)
1 egg
Half tsp salt
1tbsp freshly ground cardamom (from about 28 pods)
600g plain flour, sifted
Firstly boil the water and butter together until the butter is melted and leave to cool. Mix 60mls of the warm water, 1 tsp caster sugar and yeast in a jug and leave for 5mins until it starts bubbling.
In another bowl whisk the egg, caster sugar and salt and then whisk in the remaining warm water. When the butter mixture has cooled but is still warm add the yeast mixture, the egg mixture and the cardamom and stir to combine. Add the flour and mix. Knead until smooth and soft.
Rachel says to leave it to prove for 2 hours for the first rising and 20 minutes for the second but I did it for an hour and an hour (as I have been doing). After the first rising I divided the dough in two and shaped them into loaves and put them in lined loaf tins for the second rising.
And my God what a rising, this fresh yeast is genius stuff. You'll see from the pictures the first rise and then the finished loaves. This is almost a brioche-type bread and was lovely fresh out of the oven with butter (or honey if you're that way inclined) or toasted after a couple of days. The cardamom gives it a fragrant, almost minty taste. In fact it would go very well with foie gras and a nice Beaumes de Venise wine, heaven.

One Cushion Down....

Last weekend I finished the first of two cushions that I'm making for a couple of friends of mine. This one is a lovely pale green colour and the second one is cream (but the wool has a lovely bobbly texture).
I bought the amount of wool that I thought I would need but I didn't factor in my inability to calculate the amount of wool needed for the pattern! I'm very bad at working out how much wool I need if I'm using a different wool from the one recommended in the pattern. I mostly get it right, more luck than judgement I would say. This time I got it very wrong but I managed to get another ball of the wool with the same dye number so all was well. But as I got to the end of the cushion it became clear that I would just have enough to finish it but I might not have enough to sow it up, oops.
After blocking it out I started to sew up one side when I discovered that the wool is not very strong and when I pulled the stitches to tighten the seam the wool snapped. I then re-started from the other ends and, you guessed it, almost at the end it snapped again. Much cursing later I finished one side but there wasn't enough wool left for the other side. I went searching for a wool that would match and found a grey wool in my stash, but would it show? Only one way to find out. Happily because I use mattress stitch when sewing up the seam is invisible and so is the grey wool!
Once all sewed up I stitched on the buttons using a lovely dark brown and voila, one cushion. I am now moving on to the second one, I think I may have the same problem with the amount of wool but not to worry I'll find a way around it.