Tiger Bread

Tiger bread, tiger bread...
Does what ever  normal bread does. But tastes more tigery, I guess.

As long as tigers taste of sesame oil.

Sour Dough Loaf

May I introduce you to Fabio, the starter dough...

He's made from leftover pizza dough... so I thought it appropriate to name him after the gentleman friend of an Italian friend.
It's not a proper traditional sour dough starter - that's just made with flour and water (and maybe a bit of grape, if you listen to Paul Hollywood) - but I had a big dollop of raw pizza dough that had been sitting around for far too long. I mixed it with equal parts flour and water and let it sit in a jar. I added more flour and water every couple of days "feeding it" until it got all bubbly and delicious.

He got so big he had to be moved to a larger flip top jar.
That's where he lives now. I only feed him every week or so now - just to keep the bubbles active. I've used a mix of flours, depending on what was within reach. Strong flour, plain flour and self-raising flour.
Also with a traditional started you're meant to rely on the naturally occurring yeasts in the air and in the flours. I cheated and added a sprinkle of instant yeast every now and then. (See what I mean about not being a proper starter dough?)

Again, my camera has decided to delete some of my pictures without any kind of permission. I no longer have photos of the dough mixing - you'll have to use your imagination. Or google.

Ingredients

460g Strong Flour
300g Sourdough
10g Sea Salt
230ml Water

(Here's where I found the recipe - they even have a video! Watch out for the different quantities on the same pages...)

Weigh the flour into a large bowl - pour in the sourdough and add the salt to one side of the bowl and pour in most of the water (only add the rest if the dough is too stiff. It should be a fairly wet mix, but the wetness of the starter will determine how much is really needed)
Using a flour scraper or a clawed hand mix the ingredients together.
When fully combined turn out onto a clean surface and knead thoroughly.
Once it's stretchy but no longer sticky place it into an oiled bowl and leave to rise for 2 hours or so - covered in cling film.
After it's risen for the first time it can be shaped and moulded. Knock the dough back, and fold on itself to create the desired shape, and put into a basket or bowl to keep the shape. Flour that bowl REALLY REALLY well! (I used a large round bowl to shape it. Next time I'd use two smaller ones!)
Loosely cover and leave to rise again for around 8 hours.

Pre heat the oven to 230oC - I didn't have a baking stone, so heated a second baking tray in the oven.

 

Tip the dough onto a baking tray, slash the loaf with a sharp knife. (Slash deeper than this. The shallow cuts didn't control the rise, it split the crust instead)

 

Place the cold baking tray directly on the hot baking tray, and tip some water into the bottom of the oven.
Cook for 30-50 minutes (depending on the size of the loaf) until dark golden brown, and hollow sounding when tapped on the base.

 

Absolutely delicious warm!!
(Really good toasted as well... with lots of butter... mmmmm)

Focaccia!

FOCACCIA!

Well this was jolly good fun!
I had some problems with photos - most of the time my hands were too sticky or oily to take photos, and when they weren't my SD card decided to randomly delete things. Most annoying.

Ingredients:

500g Strong Flour
10g Salt
14g Instant Yeast
400ml Cool Water
45ml Olive Oil (plus extra for rolling)
2 tablespoons well chopped rosemary (optional)
Rosemary sprigs to top
Sea Salt
Extra Virgin Olive Oil (to drizzle)

1. Measure out the flour into a bowl - add the salt and yeast at opposite sides of the bowl, and add the chopped rosemary - whisk together.

2. Add about 300ml of the water and the oil, and stir together with your hand in a claw shape.



3. As the mixture begins to come together add the remainder of the water and continue to mix until you have a big gloopy mess.

I didn't really appreciate quite how gloopy this would be...

 4. Tip the dough onto an oiled surface and knead, pushing the mixture away with the heel of your hand, stretching it, and folding it back on itself, rotating 90 degrees and repeating.

5. Repeat.

Urgh.

6. Repeat.
7. Repeat some more... (Hollywood says 5-10 minutes, longer for a beginner. I managed at least half an hour before becoming extremely bored, and covered in dough... There was much scraping, and much re-oiling. Maybe that's where I went wrong...)

 I'd recommend just watching  GBBO for this bit
8. When the dough it smooth and stretchy and forms a ball, place it into an oiled dish or tray, and cover with cling film. Leave to prove until doubled in size.

Not really the "smooth dough" he was talking about

  

 

Keep an eye on it... this is far more than doubled.

And while your finding your camera it will try to escape.

It's ALIIIIIIVEE!!!

 9. When doubled, tip it back onto a freshly oiled surface and knock the air out.

10. Grease a large baking tray (or two smaller ones) with plenty of olive oil, and place the dough into the trays, stretching it out to fill the whole space.

 

11. Leave to prove again, for about an hour. Heat oven to 220oC.

The dimpled photo has vanished... you'll have to use your imagination.

12. When doubled in height poke holes in the bread with your fingers. Really poke it hard. Right the way to the bottom. Sprinkle with sea salt and poke sprigs of rosemary into the dimples. Drizzle with yet more oil.
13. Bake for 20 minutes, until golden and crisp.
14. Remove from oven, drizzle with extra virgin olive oil, and place on a wire rack to cool. (Don't leave it in the tray... it will go soggy)

DIMPLES!

 

This was my first attempt. I cut it in two, but used a big tray, so put both parts on. Which made it bulgy looking. And I forgot to dimple. And the salt. And the rosemary. Still tasted very nice though!

 

And it has some irregular structure!!

Soda Bread!

Here are some photos of soda bread...
I'm not going to give you the recipe though. It was a disaster. I have learnt from my mistakes... When the recipe says knead lightly, it really doesn't mean knead for 10 minutes... no indeed. It means don't knead it for 10 minutes, your bread will end up like a brick.

Still. It smelled lovely!

Fruit and Nut Bread

Originally meant to be a recipe to use up over ripe bananas - just to make banana bread... until I found some recipes that used dates (which I had in my fridge from, I dunno, October, probably).So I had to use a recipe that used both.
Then I had to find a recipe that didn't use condensed milk, as apparently that's not one of my cupboard staples this week.

I found a date and banana bread that included walnuts. But I don't like walnuts, so I wouldn't have any of those. I've got cashews, would they work?
Ooooh, what's that? Walnuts? Left over from the same recipe as the dates? How fortuitous!
So, that's slightly over ripe bananas, dates and walnuts to be used? And a recipe that requires slightly over ripe bananas, dates and walnuts?

We are a go!

I'll start off by admitting that I butchered the original recipe. And then I added sultanas. Sorry about that...

Banana Date and Walnut (ish) Loaf:

100g butter
100g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
225g self-raising flour
1/2 tsp salt
1tsp baking powder
2 over ripe bananas (about 300g)
100g chopped dates
60g chopped walnuts
50g sultanas

Pre-heat the oven to 180oC
Grease and line a 2lb loaf tin.

 Cream the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy. Add the vanilla and mix well. Incorporate the eggs, one at a time, adding a tablespoon of flour after each one. Mix thoroughly.
Mash the bananas until smooth. Add the banana, sultanas and dates (I'd used dried dates, which I stoned, chopped and very briefly soaked in warm water), stir gently.
Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into the bowl and mix until just combined.

Pour the mixture into the tin, and bake in the middle of the oven for about and hour and a quarter, or until you can poke it with a stick, and the stick come out clean!

Leave to cool in its tin for 10 minutes, then turn out, peel of the lining paper and cool on a wire rack.

Enjoy, sliced, with butter.

Unless it's horrible. In which case I apologise!

Mmmmm. I've just had a nice warm piece with butter melting on top. It was delicious!!

Tortilla Wraps

These wraps were really easy (if a little time consuming) and are much, much nicer than the ones in a plastic packet!

300g Plain Flour
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
50g Lard (cold, diced)
150ml warm water

- Put the flour, salt and baking powder into a large bowl and add in the diced lard
- Rub the lard into the dry ingredients until the mix resembles bread crumbs
- Add almost all of the water and bring the mix together to form a dough (add more water if required - different flours absorb different amounts of water)
- Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth (10-15 minutes)
- Place the dough into a greased bowl, and cover with cling film. Leave to rest in a warm environment for about an hour.
- After an hour, turn the dough back onto a floured surface, and cut into 8

Pieces of eight!

- Roll out each piece of dough into a thin circle, about 8-10 inches in diameter. (you may need to cover the remaining dough with clingfilm to prevent in drying while you work)

Rolling, rolling, rolling...

Even with the circle guide I can't get that right!

- Heat a frying pan over a medium heat, and dry fry the tortilla for a minute or until it starts browning.

no. it's not a circle.

- Flip the tortilla and cook the other side until browned

It looks like a tortilla though!!