Two Breads.

For this month's Random Recipes, we were asked to choose a random bread recipe.  Steve was more than happy to join in with this one as he loves making bread and is really the official bread maker in this house.  We have two dedicated bread books in the house - Bread Matters by Andrew Whitley and Dough by Richard Bertinet.  These were the ones we randomly chose. The other book I had in the mix was Short and Sweet by Dan Lepard - I love his bread recipes too.

Steve chose Bread Matters and randomly chose page 221 which is Cheese Bread.

He made three lovely loaves of cheesy bread.  He used mature cheddar and half white and half wholemeal bread.  This bread was particularly good for dipping into soup but Steve also liked it just spread with butter.  Obviously the kids loved it too.

I got Dough and opened it at page 88 - Ciabatta.

I must say I was a bit disappointed - how boring.  I noticed the variation called for Kalamata olives so I intended to make this.  Unfortunately, despite having bought some beautiful olives, I completely forgot to put them into my dough.  Ooops.
So there I was slightly bored by my white ciabattas.  However, they were incredible!  Perfect ciabattas, and full of taste (probably due to the 24 hour ferment).

They took a few steps over 24 hours but the actual work involved was minimal.  The recipe calls for avocado oil but I couldn't find any.  I'd love to give it a try again with either the olives or the avocado oil and Steve has asked for me to make them again so I guess I will.

Loadsa Dough!

Just look at those gorgeous bakers and their amazing baps!

From left to right - me, the rather talented Janice from Farmersgirl Kitchen, and the amazing Jacqueline from Tinned Tomatoes. 

Last Saturday we all met in Freuchie for a day of baking bread with Colin from Bread In Fife. 

We did the Mediterranean Breads and I must say I had a brilliant day.  Colin runs the courses from his own spacious kitchen.  I just felt that it was such a lovely relaxed experience - very homely - and only the four of us leisurely baking bread with lots of breaks for cups of tea and to eat what we had made.

We made a LOT and got many useful tips and ideas from Colin.  We had all made plenty of bread before and still gained plenty but I know that Colin's course would be excellent for beginners too.  He has a range of courses such as rich breads or sourdough or essential breads.

We started the day by making breadsticks - nice thick ones - chewy in the middle and crispy on the outside.

We then made pretty fougasse.

As Colin said, this was really just an exercise in shaping the breads as the dough itself was fairly uninspiring. Would go well with a flavoursome soup though.  I was reminded of my first time making fougasse which I outline in this post - you can either have the pretty shape or you can have lots of interesting fillings.  I have yet to master doing both but I might try again and see if I can find a compromise. 

We then made our olive oil dough for the paninis and focaccia.  Colin gave us a display of his encyclopaedic knowledge and displayed many different kneading techniques and who they were attributed to.  We had plenty of time to practice different ones and find what suited us best and Colin was able to watch what we were doing and chip in with advice.  I think I have found my own kneading style but whether I use it or whether I stick with my trusty technique of using the Kenwood Chef remains to be seen!

Colin finished off with a demonstration of pizzas.  He made a savoury one and a sweet one.  The sweet pizza was my favourite thing of the day - he spread some thinned apricot jam onto the dough then added some sliced apples.  It was beautiful.  I know the boys will absolutely love having pizza for dessert so I'll be making this again next week.  I then plan to experiment.  I want to do a banana one and all sorts of pizzas for pudding.   

  We rounded off the day by sitting round to share our pizzas with some salad.

A hugely enjoyable day with great company and a bounty of bakes to take home.

I would thoroughly recommend Colin's classes to anyone near enough for a day trip.  As usual, I paid for the day myself so there is nothing influencing my recommendation. 

Here is the Bread In Fife website if you are interested and Colin does gift vouchers if you are looking for a Christmas gift. 

RR 14 - Oatmeal And Garlic Bread.

Dom's Random Recipe Challenge enters its second year and we were randomly asked to select our 17th cookbook on our shelves.

My 17th book is The Claire MacDonald Cookbook.  It is signed inside, "To Louise, With best wishes from Claire MacDonald of MacDonald March 2004".

Steve and I spent an amazing three days on Skye staying at Kinloch Lodge with the very charming MacDonalds and we spent one of our mornings watching her give a cookery demonstration.

I have wonderful memories of that trip.  The food in the hotel was wonderful and we spent the days walking on the beautiful and empty beaches of Skye with our dog at the time, Che, looking forward to our dinners.  

I see they have a Michelin star now.  I think that must be recent, don't think they had it when we stayed although I couldn't have faulted the food or service.

Have a look at the link above for Kinloch Lodge - the scenery is out of this world.  We really did have all the stunning, rugged beaches completely to ourselves.

Anyway, back to the bread.  I completely forgot to take any decent photos.  I served the first loaf with a bacon and avocado salad as recommended by Lady MacDonald and they went together beautifully.  The bread has the great rustic texture provided by the oatmeal and a lovely subtle taste of garlic.  I froze one of the loaves and I am convinced that when defrosted and used, the garlic taste was more pronounced.

My 5 year old bemoaned the fact I gave him non-home-made bread with his soup yesterday.  These kids must be spoiled!  I agree, though, the bought bread is nowhere near as interesting as home-made.  I love wholesome breads and I love quirky variations like this one.  Another successful random recipe. 

Cheat's Sourdough.

One of my challenges this month has an option to use a mature sourdough starter.

Well, we tried a sourdough starter once before and ended up throwing it out as it was a bit TOO sour or otherwise known as rancid.  And I don't really have time this month to faff about trying something that I'm not terribly confident will work.

So, I went and ordered ready-made sourdough starter from the kitchen of THE Richard Bertinet.

And when you see the price, you'll think I've gone off my rocker.  Yes, I feel guilty about it.

But, today I made the first loaves of bread I have made in years!  And they are a success.  I made wholemeal but I'll maybe do a more traditional white one for my next loaf.  They are soft and chewy with a crispy crust and they have a distinctive sour tang.  Much more tasty than shop-bought with our soup at lunchtime.

Little Kitchen.

Some lovely food again this weekend.

Steve has made more wholemeal bread.  Not as good looking this time but just as tasty.  He got up early on Saturday morning to bake it so we had it warm from the oven with melting butter with our morning coffee. Mmmmm.

Rufus and I had been to the library last week and I had managed to pick up a few new cook books to have a look at.  We used the first one today.  It is called Little Kitchen by Sabrina Parrini. It is Australian and looks like it was only published in 2009 so quite new.  It is a lovely book especially for cooking with children.  Laid out very well with photographs of a completed version of every single recipe as well as other fun or stylish photos. 

I see they have a website and sell baking equipment in Australia -  Little Kitchen

So, for lunch today, we decided to go for the Crunchy Chicken Fingers.  We had some Ruskoline in the cupboard so we used that instead of making our own breadcrumbs and we just served them with peas.

Adam did most of this himself and I was impressed at what a neat job he made of it.  He is getting really good at cracking eggs into a bowl and there was no shell in the egg at all.  I think I usually underestimate what a 3 year old can actually achieve.

Because it's the tattie holidays, Adam will not have pre-school for the next two weeks so this will give us more time to do loads of cooking and baking.  There are a few recipes in this book that we have our eye on - can't wait to get cracking!

Bread From My Husband.

Well, yesterday was our 8 year anniversary.  One of the things I most appreciate about my husband is that he cooks wonderful things for us.

His favourite is to bake bread.  Lately he has been using this book.  

He loves this book and can be found sitting reading it at all times of day.

This morning I came down into the kitchen and found this waiting for me - 

It tastes great.  The kids and I have just had some as part of a ploughman's lunch.  I think I'll toast some later to have with scrambled eggs for tea.  Nice to have simple fare to go with freshly baked home-made bread.

At the weekend he made brioche.  He made the dough on the Saturday night and he baked half of it then.  We both devoured it completely straight out of the oven.  He then baked the rest of it in the morning for our breakfast.

And, as I mentioned in a previous post, he made pain au chocolate the weekend before.

He has been a little disappointed with the dried yeast recently so he ordered some fresh yeast from an online shop.  The bread we had today was the first batch he made with the fresh yeast and I think he's much happier with it.  

It's a shame that he doesn't have as much time as he would like to cook and bake for us.  I only work two days per week and the rest of the time I am the "housewife".  I'm sure if Steve were the "housewife" we would probably eat much better.  Certainly, our house would be tidier!