A Year in Bread - Back to the bread.

I had great plans. This year was to be a year of making bread, Then Covid19 arrived and everything changed. Along with their toilet rolls people bulk bought flour and yeast. I should be pleased about this, after all, I have been suggesting people should learn to make their own bread for ages and telling them about the joy of a home made loaf and the house smelling a little like a French boulangerie. Then they all go ahead and do it! It is only in the last few weeks that I have been able to get my hands on any strong bread flour, and I still have not found any yeast, dried or fresh! (I do have a small stash of dried yeast so all was not lost.
There is, however, a bread that requires no addition of yeast, just flour, water, salt and a strange flour and water mix that has been kept captive for a while, being fed flour and water every so often. I write of Sourdough bread.
Sourdough relies on the naturally occurring yeasts in flour and in the air to create enough carbon dioxide to leaven a loaf. It has become, over the past 15 years, very trendy and a little bit over burdened with snobbery, both direct and inverted. At its best it is delicious, at its worst quite plain.
My first memory of Sourdough was in San Francisco in 1995. I was back packing across the States for a month and, owing to jet lag, woke very early in my youth hostel. I headed of on the short walk to Fisherman's Wharf where the was a coffee stand just opening up. I ordered a coffee and a roll for my breakfast. It was a revelation. This chewy, slightly acidic, thick crusted bread was quite delicious. I will always link sourdough to that beautiful, sunny, August morning in California.
I have tried several times to cultivate my own sourdough, starting with following instructions online to purchasing several starters. I have not been able to get these to work for me in any meaningful way and I have certainly not been able to sustain them. However, in times of crisis we must show some determination! So I started another batch and have just baked my first loaf this morning. The loaf is not perfect, but the first few loaves are not supposed to be, and it was quite delicious with my own marmalade for breakfast.
If you search the internet for recipes to create your own sourdough starter then you will find hundreds of different ways of doing it; from adding grapes to the initial mix to mixing many flours and I'm sure these all work well in context but I went for pure simplicity and it appears to have worked.
Below you will see my recipe but I make no guarantee that it will work for you. It is worth bearing in mind that Corner Cottage is a Victorian farm labourer's cottage and is home to both normal bread making and brewing so there may well be some interesting wild yeasts that have got into my mix that might nor find their way into yours.

Sourdough starter
In a large jar with a seal add 50gms of strong bread flour to 75gms of water. Mix thoroughly and then seal the jar for 24 hours. Add the same volumes of flour and water for 4 more days, stirring thoroughly every time. It should be the consistency of thick double cream. You can adjust the flour and water to achieve this consistency as you go. By day 4 or 5 you should start to see bubbles rising to the surface of the sourdough and a definite sour smell should be coming off! By day 6 you should be ready for your first loaf!
After you have taken your first batch of sourdough starter of the process of feeding the starter begins again.

Sourdough loaf

Sourdough starter with the finished loaf.

250gms Sourdough starter
400gms Strong bread flour
200gms Water
15gms Salt

Add all the ingredients to a bowl and bring together. Kneed in your usual manner for a wet dough. (It's worth checking out Richard Bertinet on line for this. He demonstrates a fantastic way to knead any dough with over 65% hydration, there are some quite good spoofs on this too)
Pop your soft, kneaded dough into a clean bowl with a dusting of flour and cover. Put the bowl in a warm, draft fee environment.
Now comes the wait. Depending on the liveliness of your starter and about 10,000 other variables your dough may take a couple of ours to double in size or even as much as a working day (mine took 7 hours yesterday).

Knock the dough back (how I hate that term) folding it gently in on itself to form a small ball again and then pop it in a loaf tin (or banneton) for a second prove (I left mine overnight for this one!).

At the start of the second prove. Patience is all.

Finally the simplest bit. Bake in a very hot oven for about 25 minutes until dark golden brown and a little bit shiny (yes really). If you are using a banneton turn out the loaf and bake on a pizza stone or hot baking sheet.

And in the morning, ready for the oven

Allow to cool before eating (if you can). It incidentally makes the best toast on earth.

Such great toast

A Year in Bread - Plain White Loaf

This is my first recipe for bread of the year. It is for a very straightforward, 'never fail' loaf.

1 kg Strong White Flour
600 gms water (it doesn't have to be warm)
15 gms salt
15 gms fresh yeast
15 gms butter (cut into tiny pieces)

Put all the flour into a large bowl. Crumble in the yeast (if it is fresh it will crumble). Add in the butter and the water and begin to mix the dough.

The start. Mixing the ingredients

I use one hand like a claw to start with until it all starts to come together. At this point add the salt and continue mixing until it form a sticky dough, it should leave the bowl almost completely clean. Your hands will get covered in sticky dough, this may feel a bit weird at first but you will get used to it.
Place the dough on a flat surface and begin to knead. There is no need to flour the surface. This is a very personal process.

Ready for kneading.

For a 60% hydration loaf (the ratio of water to flour) like this I find that a pushing away from you with the heal of the hand whilst holding the edge closest to you work well. Then I pull the dough back slightly rolling it back on itself. I then turn the dough through 90 degrees and start again.
Kneading should take between 5 and 10 minutes depending on how hard and fast the dough is worked. It will feel light and smooth and will return to its original shape if a finger is gently poked into it.
I tend to use an earthenware bowl for bread making (Mason Cash no 9) and I now clean out any of the original mix using very hot water and I allow the bowl to get warm. The bowl should now be dried carefully and the tiniest pinch of flour thrown in. I then place the dough in the bowl and cover it tight with cling film.

Time for patience.

This is then placed in a draft free place at a constant room temperature for an hour.
The dough should have doubled in size and now it must be 'knocked back' (a term I hate).

Fully risen dough.

Simply take the dough out of the bowl and reshape it back to a much smaller ball forcing some of the carbon dioxide out.

Bubbles before "knock back"

Place the dough back in the bowl and cover again for another hour.
After the dough has risen for the second time take it out of the bowl and divide it into two equal parts, shape these into the particular style of loaf desired place these on a floured baking sheet and leave alone for 20 to 30 minutes. Turn the oven on to 250 degrees and place a roasting dish at the bottom of the oven.

Final prove 

When the loaves have risen for the final time dust them with flour and cut them to enable the to rise in the oven without bursting out of the side! Do not use anything blunt for this; A scalpel or razor blade works well for this.

Cut loaves, ready for the oven

Slide the loaves into the oven and add about 150ml of boiling water to the roasting dish. Allow the loaves to bake without disturbing them too much. Take a look once and turn them if you know your oven has a hot spot. The loaves are done when you turn one over, tap it and it sounds hollow. (Be careful doing this they will be hot!
Take them out when "hollow" and the crusts looks right for you, some like it darker than others!
If you can bear it, let them cool a bit before tucking in.

Loaves ready for butter.

So about this bread making thing...

This should really carry a warning. Making your own bread can become addictive. I have been asked to give my standard bread recipe out on this blog so here goes.

500 gms strong bread flour (the better the flour, the better the bread)
350 gms of water (yes I do mean gms)
10 gms salt (the better the salt....)
10 gms fresh yeast (ask at your local independent baker)

Crumble the yeast into the flour, pour in the water and get your hands in there. Mix with a hand (held like a claw) for a few seconds and then add the salt. Bring the whole together to form a dough (the bowl should come cleanish).
Now for the kneading. Everyone develops their own style; mine is based on a method used by Richard Bertinet (who is a bit of a bread god). I push the dough down on the surface (no extra flour needed) and pull the dough towards me. I then fold this back over the dough, pick it up from the bottom and do the same process again with an occasional turn. It is very obvious when the dough is ready - I know it sounds mad, but it just starts to feel alive.
Her come's the trick. I use a heavy earthenware bown bowl which I now fill with clean hot water. After a few minutes I empty this water (I use it for washing up) and dry the bown completely. A little flour is sprinkled into the bowl and the dough placed on top of this. I cover the bowl with cling film, "Spaghetti Western tight."*
This is then placed in a warm area to rise for and hour or longer - it needs to be twice the size that it started.
After the rise, I tip the dough out and shape it as I require. I then sprinkle it with flour and gently lay the clingfilm over the top. I leave this for another hour.
The oven is popped on hot (220 ish) and a roasting dish of water is placed in the bottom. A couple of slashes with a scalpel are made in the top of the bread and it is placed in the oven.
This is where the judgement is required - Take the bread out when it is ready (slightly darker than you think) and allow to cool on a rack.

* Whenever, in Spaghetti Westerns, the director wished to give a sense that native Americans ("INJUNS") were about there was a sound of drums. This is what the cling film should sound like when you tap it.

I have been asked about which books on bread making I like and here they are -

Dough, by Richard Bertinet, ISBN 978 1 85626 762 5
The Fabulous Baker Brothers, by Henry and Tom Herbert, ISBN 978 0 7553 6365 0
Bread, by Paul Hollywood, ISBN 978 1 4088 4069 6

All of these books will teach you how to make a basic loaf (and more besides) and once you have that sorted the world is your bakery.

Give us this day...

It has been a long time since I wrote and for that I apologise - life has been so very hectic during the last month.
One of the things which I have most enjoyed over the last 5 months is making my own bread. I must encourage everybody to do the same. I too put up all the usual excuses - "I don't have the time" "it works out very expensive" "will it be any good?" and so on. However, once you begin to make your own and play around with a few basic recipes I promise you it becomes addictive (in a good way, of course).
In terms of the time it takes: You have to be around for an hour and a half or so, but only 15 minutes of that is actually spent doing anything. This is perfect for a weekend afternoon or even an evening during the week.
A 1.5 Kilo bag of good strong bread flour will cost less than £2 (this will make 3 medium sized loaves) add to that 80p for other ingredients and your homemade loaf comes in at about 70p. If you can buy an organic, artisan loaf for that little - please tell me where!
The quality of your loaf is up to you - if you are prepared to spend a little time working out what best works for you then the quality will often be better than what is available to buy.
It is also nice to know exactly what went into your daily bread.
Well that's the technical stuff, so what about the emotional stuff? Bread is culturally vital (and I use the word "vital" in its true sense). It is the "Staff of life", most food cultures in the world have a basic starch (potato, maize, rice, pasta) but nearly all of them also have a bread. It is a basic human desire to make and eat bread with family and friends. As for the making of bread I simply ask if there is a more soothing, tactile, life affirming action than the kneading of an organic, GM free loaf?
I have been so excited by the making of bread that for the Easter period I even made Hot Cross Buns. Why do supermarkets insist on selling these all year round? They are supposed to be a seasonal treat - If you fancy them in August then get rid of the cross and call them "Tea cakes" (minor rant over).
If you want to buy a book with simple and "work every time" recipes then you wont go far wrong with the Breads and Bakes book in the series produced under "The best kept Secrets of the Women's Institute", it is written by Carrie O'Regan and Jill Brand. Incidentally the WI book on Jams, Pickles and Chutneys by Midge Thomas is also very good indeed.
And so to my basic White Bread recipe. This one only needs a single rise and does not require knocking back.

White Bread
1lb Strong White Bread Flour
10floz Hand warm water
1oz Butter
1tsp (heaped) Easy blend (or Quick) yeast (I use Doves farm)
1tsp Salt

Sift the flour into a bowl. add the yeast, butter and salt. Rub the butter in as you would a pastry. Add two thirds of the watter and mix in with a knife. Slowly add the rest of the water and get your hands in there! When the dough has come together, pop it on a floured surface and kneed for 10 full minutes. Your dough should feel springy and soft. Shape your dough into a ball or put it in a suitable oiled loaf tin with oiled cling film over it (a tea towel will also do this job) and allow it to rise in a quiet warm spot till it has doubled in size. This is the magic bit and should take about 40 minutes. Dust the top with flour. Pop it in to a hot oven for about 35 minutes until it is golden brown and sounds hollow when tapped. Allow it to cool on a wire rack.

Once you have done this loaf, the world is your mollusc. Try different flours, adding seeds, bran, olives, onions, sun dried tomatoes, nuts.......