Knitting Projects Finished Over the Summer

Just a couple of my knitting projects completed over the summer (I have another on the go and another that I'm working on at the moment).
As mentioned before the cushion has yet to be delivered and the doggie is happily ensconced in his new home.

Buttery, Sugary Heaven

A friend went to Paris during the summer and came back with tales of a Breton pastry called Kouign Aman. I had never heard of it and neither had my friend but after having it about three times during her week there she was a convert. I needed to try this new confection. My friend sent me the link to a blog by an American living in Paris with a recipe for the Kouign Aman and with visitors from France coming that weekend I had my opportunity.
My sister-in-law and my niece lent a helping hand, the former reading the instructions and the latter helping with the mixing etc. David Lebovitz's recipe was very easy to follow with pictures along the way to help you keep on track. This is just a mixture of water, flour, sugar, butter and yeast and what you get at the end is divine. I followed the cooking time and temperature to the letter of the recipe but it cooked in less time (30 minutes) and was a bit burned. I served it anyway (I had some other cakes too so not a disaster) and by the end of the evening there was none left, it was a hit.
After that weekend I was using the oven to bake some bread and noticed that there was a lot of solidified butter at the bottom of the oven and realised that it was butter that had escaped from the Kouign Aman! I had put it in a loose-bottomed tin.
I had cause to make it again the following weekend for a friends house warming. I learned my lesson about the oven temperature and timing but not about the loose-bottomed tin! I used a smaller springform tin and the tart rose better than the first time but there was butter escape again. I guess it gives me an excuse to make it again and this time I will steer clear of the loose-bottomed tin!
The reaction to the second one was similar to the first, there were people fighting for the last piece. It's great that you can create such a wonderful taste from just five ingredients isn't it?
P.S. I'm afraid I didn't take any pictures but they looked pretty much the same as the ones on the blog, really they did!

Brioche Bread

One of my baking experiments over the summer was a brioche. I made the Colomba successfully and brioche is a similar dough, ie enriched with butter and eggs, so I figured I was half way there.
One of my acquisitions in the last couple of months was the first Ottolenghi cookbook and it has become my go-to cookbook. The savoury recipes are so good, lots of flavour and spice. They are bit phaffie but worth it. On the other hand, the phaffiness of the baking section hasn't endeared itself to me. There seems to be two steps too many in most of the recipes. Don't get me wrong, the finished product is very good, it's just the journey that is a bit over long.
Having said that, I chose the recipe for brioche from it. The one thing I would say about this particular recipe is that it only gives instructions for a stand mixer, there isn't an alternative hand method, which I found annoying. I have a stand mixer so I used it. They say follow the recipe the first time and then go off piste. The result was a loaf that tasted like brioch but had the texture of bread. Not that lovely soft, teary texture that a briche should have.
We ate it all the same because it tasted good but a brioche it was not. Next time I will find a recipe for a handmade one and see if I can succeed that way.

I'm Back....Just in Case you Were Missing Me

Hello again, I realise that I have been absent for a few months. To those of you who have missed me (or at least noticed my absence) I am sorry for the gap in posting. You could call it a summer break, although I think it has been longer than the summer. It's not as if I haven't been productive in the last few months, I have been baking and knitting so I guess it's life that has been getting in the way.
I have been making lots of bread (sour cherry and walnut ring, walnut and carroway, baguettes to name but a few) and baking lots of yummy cakes and slices (courgette loaf, chocolate loaf, pear and amaretti crumble cakes, cherry slices etc) and there are a couple of these that I will elaborate on in future blogs (can you stand the suspense?).
I have also completed a couple of knitting projects. I finished the second cushion to match the one I did earlier this year for friends (it has yet to be delivered but will hopefully be with the new owners soon). A feind also commissioned me to knit a draft excluder in the shape of a doggie! He is in his new home and apparently making himself useful.
So it's been a summer of much activity and I'm hoping to keep you clued to your cakes and cardies from now all with tales of jams, pickles, homegrown veg and much, much more. More later!

The Loaf in the Picture

Since making my first loaf of bread with my starter/leaven I had put it in the fridge for the next time. As I don't make bread every day I figured it would be fine there until my next adventure. You do have to remember to re-activate about three days before you want to use it so last Thursday morning I fished it out of the fridge to see how it had weathered the last couple weeks. All looked well so I just added 50mls of water and then 4 tbsp four mixed it all up and popped it in the cupboard. Friday morning dawned and when I checked the starter it had come to life again, bubbling up nicely. I removed three quarters of this mixture and then added 100mls of water and 125g flour, mixed and returned to the cupboard. The same on Saturday morning and it was ready to use on Sunday when I had decided to make the Currant and Cassis bread from The Handmade Loaf. I didn't have any currants but I did have raisins, they're all the same really aren't they? Sorry Dan if I'm flouting all recipe laws but sometimes it's whats in the cupboard that works!
Ingredients:
250g Currants or Raisins in this case
150g water
50g cassis
For Dough
250g Strong White flour
150g Rye Flour
1 and a half tsp salt
280g of the soaked Currants, drained
150g soaking liquid plus water to make the required weight at 20% (not sure I understand these percentages but I added enough water to make the dough consistency I am used to)
30g cassis
100g water at 20 degrees
three quarters tsp yeast
200g rye leaven (I used my white leaven)
The first thing to do is to soak the currants, mix them with the cassis and water and bring to the boil, remove from the heat and leave to cool overnight (or in my case about an hour, I never read the recipe the night before!).
Mix all the dry ingredients together in one bowl and the wet ingredients in another and then add the wet to the dry mixing well. Dan says with your hands but I'm afraid I'm a bit squeamish about that so I use my dough scraper. It gets mixed, either way.
Now Dan Lepard has a very different way of kneading, it is done for a very small amount of time (10-15 seconds) left for 10 minutes and repeated twice. This is done on an oiled surface. All very different but it works just as well.
The dough is then "turned". This is a way of stretching the dough to elongate the bubbles. You form the dough into a rectangle then stretch it in one direction and fold (in thirds) and the stretch the other direction and fold. For this recipe you turn the bread after 30, 60 and 90 minutes.
Then divide the dough in two and form into batons and place (seam side up) on floured tea towels (or proving baskets it you have them), cover and leave for 2 hours. If you are still with me we are almost there. It seems using the leaven makes for a longer bread making session but it is almost therapeutic really, all the kneading, turning and proving. And I know I should have been doing the housework in between but I found myself reading!
Once these have doubled in size turn them onto a flour dusted tray and make a cut from top to bottom. Place in a pre-heated oven (210) for 45 minutes. Mine were done after 35 but then that's my oven.
And for the first time the slashing worked and I got a loaf that looked almost like the picture in the book! I was very proud as I buttered a slice and ate with relish.

Chocolate Cake á la Irvine Welsh

That's something I never thought I would write! I did indeed make a chocolate cake in the style of Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh. How I hear you ask, what are you talking about Sharon?
Well, as you will know I work for a publisher and one of our books is a collection of literary pastiche, parodies if you will. The author has taken 17 authors, created recipes and written them in the style of the author. The book is called Kafka's Soup (you can guess what Kafka makes!) and the recipe I attempted was the Rich Chocolate Cake á la Irvine Welsh. I have to say it was a pretty surreal experience but it nonetheless produced a wonderfully rich and moist cake. This was a dry run because I will be making it for a talk by the author and thought I had better try it first.

Ingredients:
250g Butter
500g Caster Sugar
40g Cocoa Powder
150g Milk Chocolate
250mls Coffee
2 Eggs
275g Self-raising flour
375ml Port

Icing:
200g Dark chocolate
100g Caster sugar
100g Double cream
100mls Kahlua (optional, but why wouldn't you?!)

The recipe is written in the Scottish vernacular and reads like a drug cook-up as you can imagine so getting to the actual instructions takes a few readings! I did find myself reading it out loud in my best Scottish accent. It's pretty simple really, melt the butter and sugar and add the cocoa powder. Once they are all melted together add the milk chocolate and coffee and stir. Take it off the heat and add the eggs and flour. I added the flour all at once but it went lumpy and then floated to the top so I had to do a lot of stirring and breaking up. (I've just made the second one and I sieved the flour and added it a bit at a time and this worked a treat). Finally, add the half bottle of port, it does say it's a rich chocolate cake and it lives up to its name.
Once all the ingredients are in the batter is very liquid and I wondered how on earth this was going to work. But I divided it between the two prepared tins and popped them in the oven at 200 degrees, it said for 1 hour but it was ready in about 50. And it worked, it sort of set rather than baked. The consistency is not like a sponge or cake more like a tort or baked cheesecake.
Let the cakes cool while you make the icing. Add all the icing ingredients together and heat until all melted and thickened. Use some icing to sandwich the cakes together and then pour the rest over the top using palette knife to smooth it out. I brought this to a BBQ the next day and for some reason there was none left at the end of the day.
As I mentioned above I have now made it again for the author's talk and it went down a treat. The author was kind enough to say that the cake was up there with some of his efforts, as I say, too kind. But you can't go wrong with chocolate and booze!
Warning: This is a certifiacte 18 cake!

The Results Are In

I left you hanging on Saturday, would the loaves work out or not? Would leaving them overnight to continue rising work or would I be facing a disaster?
The rising overnight wasn't a problem, they rose beautifully. The one that was in the proper linen lined banneton came put easily but when it landed on the baking tray it sort of flattened a bit. I put it in the oven at 220C. This was where I started to worry because the time stated in the recipe was 50-70 minutes! This is a lot longer than I have baked any bread in the past but maybe it has something to do with the leaven. To be on the safe side I set the timer for 20 minutes. When I checked it had risen a bit and browned but not enough for me to worry and remove it so I left it for another 20 minutes. At that point it was definitely done and if I had left it any longer it would have burned. I now have an oven thermometer and that was correct so not sure if it was my oven or the timing that was wrong.
The second loaf was in a bowl in a tea towel and when I went to upturn it onto the baking tray the dough had stuck to the tea towel! It looked pretty ropey so I re-shaped it and into the oven it went. This one was a strange shape to say the least but rose very well in the baking. Again this was only in the oven for about 35 minutes.
Having said all that they tasted yum (just buttered with some blackcurrant jam) and had a good texture. I would say that the experiment was a success and I'm looking forward to the next loaf/loaves but I won't forget my fresh yeast in the fridge too. It really depends on the type of bread you want.