The Staff of Life

[tomcatin]

With the trout fishing season all but upon us, I thought I would share with you my take on the perfect accompaniment for any fish ............ the Staff of Life ......... BREAD

Coming from a bread obsessed family, I shouldn't have been surprised when a couple of years ago my sister paid for me to go on a bread making course.  It changed my attitude to food and in particular to bread completely. Now every loaf of bread in my house is of my own creation and my repertoire is stretching to naans, chapatti, focaccia etc

In the confines of my confused head; making my own bread gives the same pleasure as catching a trout on one of my own flies ......... and just like fly tying the more you make the better it gets!

So now for the Fanny Craddock, no, Keith Floyd moment ......... slurp 

The basic ingredients you need for a simple wholemeal loaf are:

200g Strong White Four
400g Wholemeal Flour
375g Luke warm water
6g dried yeast
30g of dark muscovado sugar
6 - 8g salt
40g olive oil

A quick word about ingredients .... probably the most important ingredient is flour. Where possible use very strong flours (this means that they have been grown in a sun rich environment and are rich in glutens which are going to trap all the fermenting yeasts farts and burbs of gas and make your loaf rise!)

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Ok get yourself a bowl, add 100g of Strong White Flour, 3g of yeast and 175g of lukewarm water (blood warm will do) and mix to form a thin batter [known as a sponge]. Cover and leave in a warm place for as long as possible [I normally leave it for 24 hours just to improve the flavour] but an hour will suffice

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You should find that after a minimum of an hour that the sponge has gone very frothy

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Now add the balance of the ingredients (except the oil) and mix in the bowl to form a dough. Add the oil, so that it coats the bowl as well (it will make further stages a bit easier).

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Time to kneed!

This is the critical stage. There are a hundred and one techniques bakers will go on about kneeding; the simple rule is you need to keep stretching the dough and pulling the gluten proteins into long strands which will eventually trap the gases. A slightly moist dough is ideal, I just keep pushing my hands across a work top and clearing any mess with  a plastic scraper.

You will know when the dough is ready, as it will begin to get firm and increasingly elastic

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Put back in the bowl, cover and leave in a warm place for one hour. It should at least double in size

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Now its time to 'knock back' the dough and force the trapped gas out. So simply with your fist push down into the dough a couple of dozen times till it returns to its original size

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Put back in the bowl, cover and leave in a warm place for fifty minutes. Warm the oven to 180C.

[sinbad]

Yes but can you make doughnuts that look just like Fannys ? :lol:

[tomcatin]

Your dough should have risen once more .......... now to prepare for baking.

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Spread a bit of flour on a work surface and empty the dough out on to it. Grab one end , stretching the dough fold it over, then take the other end and repeat. Turn the dough through 90 degrees and repeat the folding. Before turning over, to present just stretched dough

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This helps form the crust. Oil a 1lb loaf tin (if you want a loaf) or baking tray if you fancy a bloomer , cob or similar and place dough in/on it.  Get a knife with a serrated blade and cut a few slits in the loaf (to allow it to vent a bit).

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Cover with cloth and leave in a warm place long enough for a cup of tea and a tidy up (twenty minutes will suffice). In no time it should have done a bit more rising and be ready for the oven

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Bake for about 50 minutes in the middle of the oven (ideally leave a baking below with about a mug of water ....... this really make a nice crust). When ready take straight of tin.

One wholemeal loaf ......... crying out for butter and Swaledale cheese

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The whole process will take about 4 hours, but in truth there is only about twenty minutes of effort involved.

That particular loaf was made with 200g Very Strong White, 200g Strong Wholemeal and 200g of Malted Grain flour (once mastered you can mess about to your heart's content)

If you are interested, but nervous of turning the kitchen into a flour strewn bombsite, I cannot recommend highly enough Colin Lyndsay's "Bread in Fife" bread making courses. It's a fantastically social way of learning another craft based in Freuchie/Falkland in Fife (see http://www.breadinfife.co.uk/ where you will also find some recipes and more coherent instructions)

[Wildfisher]

I used to cheat by using a bread maker to mic and kneed the dough. Then bake it in the oven.

[13Fisher1]

Lovely, looks great. I also love home made bread and find making it therapeutic also. Big big difference vs the shop bought soggy stuff with 14 or more ingredients.
Recently been making one that uses milk and small amount of syrup and butter (sandwich loaf) which we love.

Nought beats the smell of freshly baked bread!

Thanks

[Darwin]

The loaf looks good to me.  Cheers for the bread link, hoping to find something authentic and good.   
My first and only try with bannocks was a disaster.

[River Chatter]

Very nice TC!  Haven't really tried loaves myself, though I do manage chapatis, tortillas and a Romanesque pizza base that's on the money.  I've had a go at naans too and can get the everything spot on apart from the texture, which should be kinda stretchy and mine, while passable, lacks this quality.  Will give your recipe a go, thanks.

[Wildfisher]

Step aside Jamie Oliver, Nigella  and Shuggie  Hyphen-Whatshisname

All the cooking skills are here on the WFF   You should see the rice I make now after the River Chatter Masterclass!   :lol:

The thing I really love most about this community is the skills diversity of the membership. People who have lived a bit. :

[Billy]

I'm going to have a go at the bread recipe. There's something special about home made bread and I remember when I was young my father used to make soda bread. Great with some home made soup.

I took a notion to made some soup the other night. Carrot and coriander for the first time and without a recipe. Unfortunately i put in too much coriander and it looked more like the stuff I rake out of my garden pond after a heat wave but it tasted delicious. When I read up on the benefits of coriander I felt as if I had just discovered some kind of miracle food.

I'll maybe get the bread planned for next week and refine the soup recipe to go with it.

Billy

[Harpo]

have been making a few loaves recently after investing in a baking stone

Todays bake, half white, half wholemeal, with added seedage
could do with some of Fred's strawberry jam 

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