more sourdough

Since my last post about bread-making I have continued to make bread regularly. We have had hardly any bought bread in that time. On the whole I have stuck with the same basic recipe, just varying the flour and trying both fast action dried yeast and fresh yeast and generally using a measure of the sourdough starter as well. The results have been good - a dough which rises surprisingly quickly and a fairly consistent, even-textured loaf.

Yesterday I decided it was time to branch out and make a different style of loaf, so I flicked through my book and settled on Pain de Campagne a rustic French style bread which uses just the sourdough starter and no additional yeast. After my previous experience with the sourdough solo I was a little anxious about whether it would work and warned Steve that he might have to go out and buy his breakfast bread today!

I was pleasantly surprised because it did in fact rise quite well. It was slow, and I went to bed rather later than I had planned, but I was very pleased with the final loaf. The recipe creates quite a slack dough and I resisted the temptation to add more flour, using the French-style stretching and throwing kneading technique that I learned at a workshop with Mark of Mark's Bread.

Because the dough is rather formless it needs support during its second proving so I sat it in a colander lined with a well floured tea towel. The trick then is to turn it out quickly on to a pre-heated baking tray and slam it into a hot oven before it has a chance to collapse.

This loaf has the more airy uneven texture of artisan bread and a very good flavour.

modelling for the seriously camera-shy

It is well-known that I have a very bad relationship with the camera. The camera doesn’t like me and I’m not at all fond of it being pointed in my direction.

How, then, to illustrate the hat I have just knitted?

Without showing my face, that’s how.

The pattern is Fugue by Kate Davies, knitted in Corriedale yarn by Old Maiden Aunt. It’s an interesting piece of colour-work that needs close attention to the chart, but rewarding, and I really like the Vikkel braid.

babies and knitting: great conversation starters

Hannah and Felix are temporarily based in London and, making the most of the capital, they also went to visit the Grayson Perry exhibition at the British Museum on Friday evening, taking eight week old daughter (aka the little bear) with them. They stopped off for some food at Wagamama around the corner. Apparently the little bear behaved in exemplary fashion, had a feed herself and smiled nicely. As they were getting up to leave a diner nearby – a man of around 60 – greeted them and, having admired the baby, went on to ask if that was a handknit she was wearing?

She was, of course, wearing the cardigan I had made for her and when Hannah pointed out the cuff-to-cuff construction a knitting conversation ensued.

Turns out this man has recently learned to knit and is a new member of a knitting group in which he is not just the only man, but also the youngest member. He had already clocked the fact that it was knitted crosswise, which was I think the thing that intrigued him. Clearly another obsessive for the cause!

I was delighted to be able to report this adventure to the knitwear designer who blogs as knitsofacto. Who knows what can happen to a design once it is set free in the world.

down to the sticks, up to the smoke

We’ve been having some very nice times in two separate and contrasting trips.

First we had a weekend trip to Devon, starting last Friday on Steve’s birthday when we went down to visit some special friends. We were joined by another set of friends from Oxford and hooked up with others locally the following day to celebrate two birthdays at the newly-opened River Cottage Canteen in Plymouth.

It was a fab weekend of country walks, generous meals, sea views, laughter, conversation and friendship.

After a brief return to Bristol for Monday childcare fun, we were off again on a very different jaunt in the opposite direction. One thing I miss about our previous location in Oxfordshire is the easy access to London –we just don’t get there very often these days.

Our train journey on Tuesday was very badly delayed by signalling problems, but we did eventually manage to get to the Royal Academy to see David Hockney’s wonderful new exhibition, A Bigger Picture

The blast of colour in these paintings of the Yorkshire landscape is a real feast for the senses. Hockney clearly works very quickly and some of the paintings seem almost slapdash and crude, but then you catch a touch of extraordinary subtlety and grace that renders the landscape totally recognisable. It seems to me that David Hockney has spent his career looking, looking and looking and then showing what he sees so that we in turn are forced to look and see.

Wednesday’s visit to Grayson Perry’s Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman at the British Museum was a last minute addition to the schedule, but as is so often the case, it was the thing that made the trip for me.

It’s funny, thoughtful, touching and extremely skilful - combining work from the BM collection with Perry’s own work. I came away with the hardback catalogue as an early birthday present because I want to be reminded of his words and ideas as much as the artefacts.

Somehow I had managed never to visit the British Museum before and we were very impressed by Foster & Partners’ stunning airy treatment of the Great Court.

All in all a lovely week in the life of the newly retired!

Note: While I have been putting this blog post together, Steve has done a David Hockney on me and blasted out a quick, stream-of-consciousness perfectly judged review of the two shows, which captures them perfectly.

Photo credits: Devon photos - Steve; exhibition photos from RA and BM websites.

amo amas amat

Amo amas amat,
A minibus,
A marmaladey cat.

Forgive the gratuitous regression to John Lennon quotes* and schoolgirl Latin, but I've been making marmalade this week.

We get through quite a lot of marmalade over the course of the year, so last Saturday I went and filled my shopping bag with 13lbs of seville oranges.

I made the first batch that afternoon.

More on Sunday

and the third lot on Tuesday. None of the batches came to setting point within the hopeful 15 minutes suggested in most recipes, so there was quite a lot of messing around with a thermometer and saucers chilled in the freezer. As you can see I have used a very motley selection of jars. There are 28 of them in a wide range of sizes.

So far I have used 8lbs of oranges and will be using the rest for Bitter Orange Ice-cream - a Nigella Lawson recipe from Nigella Bites which is totally delicious - then will be freezing any oranges remaining for future use.

I think three batches of marmalade already justifies the new preserving pan that I bought last week.

As a memorandum to myself for next year's reference. 2.5lbs of oranges seemed about the right amount to be able to boil the pan of fruit and sugar quite hard without overflowing

*I remember this as a quotation from a John Lennon poem, but can't find any confirmation on the internet.

hoodie

My latest finished project. A hooded cardigan for myself. The pattern is the ubiquitous Central Park Hoodie, which I already made a couple of years ago for Hannah. It's always such a relief when a garment I've spent time on actually fits and does the job I wanted it to do!
The yarn was a total bargain - bought in the Hospice Charity shop for £4.50! I think it was pretty cheap even before it was given to charity and is 100% acrylic, but was actually quite pleasant to knit with - didn't have that static crackle that you sometimes get with synthetic yarn.

Anyway, I'm pleased to have a useful garment that will go with a lot of my other clothes. (The colour in the first and last photos are more accurate).

Unmatched buttons from my mother's button box.

the rise (and fall) of the sourdough loaf

As my first “try something new” of 2012 I decided to have a go at making sourdough bread. (And in fact, to make more bread generally). This involves creating a sourdough starter from flour, water and the airborne yeasts that exist in the environment. My bread baking book had a recipe, so off I went.

100g bread flour and 115g tepid water mixed to a paste and left in a covered bowl on the kitchen worktop for 2 – 4 days

After this time it should look bubbly and smell pleasantly yeasty, and it needs to be fed. Add another 100g flour and enough tepid water to make a paste-like dough. Cover and leave for 24 hours.
By now it should be pretty active. Stir, then discard half the mixture and feed as before. Cover and leave for 12 hours, by which time it should be just about ready to use.

Increase the volume by adding another 100g flour and tepid water and leave for 6 – 8 hours. Measure what is needed for your recipe and put the rest in a closed container in the fridge.

So far, so sourdough.
I was a bit surprised after five days of so much bubbling and dividing and adding and stirring and leaving under a damp cloth that the recipe for California Sourdough bread still specified the addition of yeast as well as the sourdough starter, but I did it anyway and was very pleased with the results.

Next I wanted to make a loaf that just used the sourdough starter and no additional yeast. The recipe I chose was for a delicious-looking olive and thyme loaf. I measured the starter, added flour and water, kneaded and left it to prove. Well I waited and waited and really nothing happened. I’ve tried it twice now and the second time I actually left it for more than 24 hours, but the starter just wasn’t active enough to raise the dough.

I was disappointed, but used the starter to do another batch of California sourdough using a wholemeal/white flour mix. Again, the result was very pleasing.

I’m continuing to work with the sourdough starter, feeding and resting, but still haven’t produced anything that looks lively enough to work on its own. It’s beginning to feel a bit wasteful as I add and discard, but I’m going to give it another week or two. Of course I’ve had a look on the internet for other methods of creating a sourdough starter, but ended up feeling confused and distressed because there are so many different approaches. It could be that the ambient temperature of our kitchen in January is just a bit low (though all the artisan bakers extol the slow, cool rise rather than the accelerated approach). For now I’m just going with these wise words from the poet David Whyte: Start close in, don't take the second step or the third, start with the first thing close in, the step you don't want to take. (With thanks to Gail Adams)