Bread in the bread maker and Cow's Milk Protein Allergy

Six months ago I wrote about Cow’s Milk Protein Allergy and bread. At the time, borne purely of frustration at not being able to find bread which didn't change its recipe as soon as Harry got used to it, I started using my Panasonic breadmaker again.  I was given it for Christmas 10 years ago and I am still happily using it weekly. The security and peace of mind it gives me knowing exactly what is in each loaf is priceless. Of course I could make bread by hand, and for many years I also did. However daily life with a toddler does not lend itself to peaceful 10 minute kneads, followed by a leisurely prove by a radiator (living in a draughty Edwardian house, that's the only sure fire way to make my bread rise) This way I can pop the ingredients in the breadmaker before bed, so that there is a loaf ready for breakfast. It really is such an easy way to ensure Harry’s safety and wellbeing and to maintain the illusion of being an organised wife and mother. 

That is not to say that we never buy bread, I’m good, but I’m far from perfect. At the moment we tend to rely on Waitrose Essential wholemeal loaf  Aldi crumpets and their Fruit loaf as our standby dairy, soya and egg free bread products. Whilst I’m happy to recommend these today, if you are thinking of picking them up and are catering for either your own allergies or those of a family member, please read the label. We’ve been caught out recently by a loaf we’ve bought multiple times in the past only to find on arriving home that the recipe has changed. For any other customer this would not be noticed, for us it could cause Harry a lot of pain. Fortunately in my new be-spectacled state I noticed before I sleepily aimed slices at the toaster, but I could have easily overlooked that essential double check. Something I've got used to not doing because I'm making my own and am safe in the knowledge that I know what I'm working with. 

Over the past 6 months I’ve made dairy free, enriched fruitbread as well as my usual white and wholemeal loaves in the breadmaker. Out of the bread maker (following my day at River Cottage)I’ve made lots of soda bread and flatbread. It is safe to say the my son loves carbs, especially those in bread form. Preferably with humous. Lots of humous. Which he shares with anything and everything within a 6 foot radius of his highchair.

Last time I wrote about bread and CMPA I included my staple recipe for a 50:50 wholewheat loaf, whilst this hasn’t changed, I’ve made it a slightly easier to work with printable below.

print recipe

50/50 Wholewheat bread

by Penelope Reader December-06-2015

A dairy free, soya free, breadmaker friendly recipe

Ingredients

• 200g Wholewheat flour
• 200g Strong white flour (include a little extra for dusting)
• 1 tsp Fast acting yeast
• ½ tsp Salt
• 1 tbsp Olive oil
• 280ml Warmish water

Instructions

1. Put the yeast in the breadmaker tin, top this with the remainder of the dry ingredients 2. Add the oil and water 3. Select sandwich loaf cycle (and if you are me, go to bed)

Details

Prep time: 5m Cook time: 5h 0m Total time: 5h 5mYield: 1 Loaf

This post has been sponsored by Panasonic. All content and views are my own.

Dairy free Soda Bread, butter and Autumn sunshine at River Cottage

 A few months back I won a raffle for a place at a Foodies Blog Camp at River Cottage. We organised accommodation, M arranged leave and I wrote it on the calendar. All of a sudden (or so it seemed) this week dawned, blue skies full of early autumn sunshine, the leaves just beginning to turn and the air suddenly developing a crispness. Unmistakably autumnal.

River Cottage is beautiful at every time of year, but this week it seemed to have truly embraced the turning seasons. Golden raspberry canes spiked with the pretty fruit, pears ripening against the kitchen garden walls and the last sweetcorn husks awaiting hungry bloggers.

I left Harry and M ready for a Daddy-son day, full of soft play and sandcastles. As only the second time I've left Harry for any length of time, to say I was nervous is probably an understatement. I waved, blew kisses and sent love before steeling myself to clamber up the tractor steps for the rocky ride down to the farm. I had a lot of hope pinned on a lot of coffee (someone who shall remain nameless was awake at 4am).

After a much needed coffee (or two) our day began with bread and butter making.  Butter making wasn't new to me - I've used it for a few years now as an activity for Guides and Brownies - they love to see their cream, shaken in a jam jar begin to change, and are so proud when everyone has it on their muffins at tea time. I knew M would love some homemade butter, so got on with whisking like my arms depended on it, before squeezing out the buttermilk, rinsing and adding a little salt and thyme.

Everyone else used their buttermilk as the liquid in their soda bread - however, obviously we needed to keep my bread dairy free as I had every intention of Harry and I tucking in later. Apple juice was to be my liquid, and paired beautifully with the apples, foraged blackberries, thyme and sage in my loaf. I love soda bread and although we weren't given quantities, this is what I would use if I were to recreate it at home:

Autumn stuffed soda bread - dairy free
Serves 8

300g malted grain bread flour
200ml cider/ apple juice
1 dsp baking powder
1 tsp sea salt
1 mug of foraged blackberries
1 eating apple, cored and chopped
1 sprig of thyme, leaves picked
3-4 sage leaves, rolled and sliced

Preheat your oven as hot as it will go
Lightly mix the flour, baking powder, salt, blackberries, apple, thyme and sage together before pouring in the cider/ apple juice and gently bringing the dough together
You don't need to knead soda bread dough so once the mixture is sticking together, simply shape it into a round before using the back of a knife to score the dough into 4 sections
Slide the loaf onto a greased baking sheet or preheated pizza stone
Heavily dust the dough with some more flour
Bake for 20 minutes

Allow to cool before enjoying as it is, or spread, liberally with some really good honey.

Still to come, some thoughts on the photography class and some of the pictures I took with M's DSLR - we think Harry has posted my point and shoot camera somewhere 'safe'

Bread, Cows milk protein allergy and food labelling

Finding dairy and soya free bread is hard work - made all the harder when brands change recipes with no publicity. This post is a plea to all allergy parents to check the labels, even of things you've been buying for a long time - every time to make sure the allergy information is the same. I've included a bread recipe at the end as that way you know exactly what's in it - it's breadmaker friendly for ease/ laziness (if you're me!)

Useless fact of the day - I'm a glasses wearer -  only for close up things, so blogging, reading, sewing, knitting - that kind of thing. Oh and now shopping. One of the things I've come to realise about having a baby with CMPA is that you have to read the blooming labels. All of them. Every time.

Case in point - Aldi bread. We love Aldi in this family, their Super 6 fruit and veg form the basis of our meal plans. As does the special offers they run on meat (M is particularly happy on the weeks they include bacon). As a rule we don't buy much that has labels per se - we eat a lot of fruit and veg, rice, quinoa, coucous, lentils etc and of course fish and meat. We do have pasta but normally that's fine ingredient wise - although I never buy fresh pasta.

Bread products on the other hand are a minefield. Most of the time I make my own bread. I think I'm the only person still using their breadmaker on a regular basis. Lately though I'm having a break from it as I was eating waaay too much and also I've been really run down of late (that's a post in itself). Sometimes though it's nice to be able to pick up a loaf, fling it in the trolley and get on with the shop safe in the knowledge that my carb loving bubba can have his toast and fruit spread. But. Of course there's a but. A massive one. BUT... then Aldi changed the recipe for their breads. No fanfare, no publicity - just walloped soya flour in them. I get it, wheat is expensive - soya flour is cheap. There goes all our bread. Of course it's labelled properly, but I didn't think to check as I 'knew' it was dairy and soya free.

So a quick plea to stores and brands - if you change your recipe to include known allergens - please, please please can you pop something on the packaging or something for the shelf edge. Allergy parents are meticulous at checking, but sometimes - just sometimes we think we're safe in the knowledge that something is safe for our babies and suddenly it's not.

Alternatives I've found thus far are: 

Hovis seed sensations Update 9/7/15 Hovis have changed the recipe of the original seed sensations to include soya flour. However, they have updated their packaging to reflect this. Please double check before purchasing. I got a loaf this week that was fine, others have got new loaves.
Sainsburys Basics crumpets
Sainsburys white pitta bread (wholemeal has soya flour)
Sainsburys Morning rolls (other breads in storedo contain dairy and soya so these are a may contain)
Sainsburys white wraps
Jacksons bloomer loaves
Waitrose essentials white loaf
Waitrose hot cross buns (how did I not know this at Easter?!)
Waitrose rosemary foccacia (pack of 4 mini breads)
Morrisons garlic flatbread

Tesco finest seeded loaf
Tesco wheatfield wholemeal batch
Tesco plain tortilla wraps
Iceland burger and hotdog buns
New York bakery bagels (Harry loves the mini ones) 

Obviously please check these if you're sensitive to 'may contains' and for any recipe changes.

Here's our incredibly simple 50/50 wholewheat bread recipe that I do in the breadmaker...

50/50 Wholewheat bread - dairy free, soya free, breadmaker friendly

200g wholewheat flour
200g strong white flour (plus extra for dusting)
1 teaspoon/ 5g fast acting yeast
1 tsp sugar
Half a teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon (or a big glug) olive oil (plus extra to oil the worktop)
280ml warmish water

As I said, I use the breadmaker and pop it on a Sandwich loaf cycle - leave it be and go about my day, but if you were to do it by hand it's super simple just a bit more input from you.

Mix the flour, yeast, sugar, salt, olive oil and water together until you get a dough.
Knead on an oiled surface for 10 minutes
Lightly oil a mixing bowl, pop your ball of dough inside. Cover with cling film and leave somewhere warm for an hour to rise
Tip the dough out onto an oiled surface again
Knead for another 10 minutes
Shape into a loaf shape - be that a round cottage loaf, or pop into a loaf tin - if using a tin, flour it. If cooking free form, then dust your baking sheet with polenta or flour
Leave to rise somewhere warm for another hour
Bake at 180 for 30 minutes or until the top is nice and golden and the bottom sounds hollow when you tap it.
Resist the urge to eat warm, slathered in almond butter and banana. Just me then? OK...

Huge thanks to the mums and dads in the Cows Milk Protein Allergy support group on Facebook for helping me track down a comprehensive list of alternative bread products. Especially Christine Kelly who was fabulous!

Easter tsoureki - a spiced, plaited enriched (dairy free) bread

Easter came and went earlier this month - we had family visiting which was lovely, and were doing our utmost to blitz the jungle that is our garden. We're hoping to host Harry's first birthday party out there, and it's a long way from family friendly right now.  Harry and I of course are dairy free so between that and Slimming world, there was no chocolate in sight for us. It's not the hardship it felt before Christmas, but sometimes something sweet is just what I need.

I live in a Greek area of London and tried Tsoureki a few years back, Paul Hollywood then made a loaf as part of one of the Bake off seasonal specials. I'd been meaning to make it for ages, and luckily enough was able to grab the spices from our local Greek grocer. I have to say I found Paul Hollywood's recipe horribly bland, so this is my souped up, dairy free version.

Spiced Easter bread (dairy free, soya free)

500g strong, white bread flour
1.5tsp yeast
1 tsp salt
60g Vitalite (or Pure sunflower - I've tried it with both)
75g caster sugar
1/2 tsp gum mastic
1/2 tsp mahleb
1/2 tsp sweet mixed spice
150ml water
150ml almond milk
150g sultanas

I made this in my Kmix, but you could easily make it by hand

Put the flour, yeast, salt, Vitalite and sugar in the bowl, add the spices.
Mix the water and almond milk together and add slowly with the mixer running. You want a really soft dough.
Add the Vitalite and sultanas, then knead the dough for about 10 minutes
Put clingfilm over the bowl of your mixer and leave to rest - I popped it on a radiator once, and the second time on the kitchen worktop overnight
Split the risen dough into three evenly sized portions and roll these out into long sausage shapes. Plait them, tucking the ends under. Pop on a lined baking sheet, cover with a tea towel and leave to rise somewhere warm until doubled in size.
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees
Eggwash the bread - I did a double eggwash so that it was a beautiful dark glaze
Bake for 20 minutes, then leave to cool
Serve buttered, or on day two toasted and buttered.

Look how popular it was!

I'm entering this into this month's Bready Steady Go - hosted by Utterly Scrummy Food for families this month - but run by her and Jen's Food

Meal planning Monday

Well I don't know what happened - there's been this big yellow shiny thing in the sky this week. I'm not sure what it is, but it's meant I've been able to relegate my collection of cardigans and tights in favour of maxi skirts & dresses. Does anyone have any ideas as to what this phenomenon may be?

Flippancy aside. For now at least. Another busy week in the pantry - I'm doing a fair bit of around and about-ing, and M is away for a couple of days (although I'm hoping to make the most of that and have put an order in for some more perfume and some amaretto - It's Jo Malone Nectarine blossom and honey if you're reading this M). As always I'll make the most of M's absence and eat fish :-) 

Breakfasts: Yoghurt, grape nuts and fruit - I'm out of rhubarb so it'll be apples for now.

Lunches: Salad, with salmon tomorrow and Tuesday - then possibly tuna later in the week

Dinners: 

Monday - home made smoked haddock fishcakes with broccoli

Tuesday -  Pantry pasta 

Wednesday - Risotto with bacon and mushrooms (I'm not sure if it'll work - but let's see)

Thursday - with any luck, leftovers

Friday - Pork fajitas

Saturday - I think we're out for Mum's and Noah's birthdays next weekend so I'm leaving this open for now. If we're at home I'll probably do a roast chicken at some point so that we've got a head start on next week.

Baking has been a lemon drizzle today - just a sponge on a 6:6:6:3 ratio, with the zest of two lemons in place of the vanilla. Cooked for 50 minutes at 175 degrees C and then smothered in a lemon and icing sugar glaze. Juice of 2 lemons and about 3oz of icing sugar. It's currently cooling but I have high hopes

Bread this week is the Paul Hollywood bloomer again, but it's gone a bit splodgy as I didn't shape it very well. 

That's it - pop back next week for a quiet week as M's in Le Mans and as we know my approach to eating alone can be summed up in two words. Marmite. Toast. 

Don't forget to pop over to At Home with Mrs M to see what the other meal planners have in store this week.

Fabulously easy flatbread

Flatbread isn't something I've made before. Well, unless ciabatta from one of those bags of bread mix. It was over 10 years ago - give me this one! It's this month's Fresh from the Oven challenge, which isn't something I've joined in with before now but I decided I would give it a go. 

It's January and I'm trying to reduce shopping bills, so having had a look in the cupboard at my many bags of flour, and having a pot of buttermilk that should have gone into soda bread last week but didn't was pretty much decided at that point. 

There's something innately satisfying about being able to make a quick bread to go with a dinner when I realise that something is just missing. Much like my loved and easy soda bread. I nearly always have yoghurt in the fridge so even without the buttermilk would be able to make these. 

So, I went back to a scribbled recipe from a friend I used to work with. It's possibly the easiest recipe I've ever posted on here, so really anyone can try it. I made a few additions to the recipe as I am always on the quest to add flavour. 

Fabulously easy flatbread

Ingredients 

A pot of buttermilk or Greek yoghurt
Bag of flour - I used wholewheat

Equipment

Mixing bowl
Non stick frying pan
Rolling pin

Empty your buttermilk/ yoghurt from the pot into the mixing bowl. Really scrape it out
Take that pot to the sink, rinse it out with water, then use a tea towel or kitchen towel to dry it out
Fill the pot up with flour, empty into the mixing bowl
Using your hands, bring the mix together to form a ball of dough

I used a 250g pot of buttermilk and that made 10 flatbreads

And that's it! Really! Well, Ok you need to cook it. 

Take a ball of dough about the size of a small satsuma. 
Flour your surface, and rolling pin. 
Roll out the flatbread until it's really thin - about half a cm. It's a sticky dough so you may need to re dust with flour. 

Heat up your pan (no oil) until it's hot, hot, hot. Lay the flatbread on the pan and cook until you start to see the bread bubbling. Turn it over and do the same with the other side. 

And that's it - we had them with leftover turkey chilli, grated cheese and soured cream. They're flexible enough to use as a wrap, but equally work to dunk into soup, or you could even use them as an alternative pizza base.. 

I made half a batch that were plain (ostensibly for M) and half that were heavily spiked with chilli and coriander. Given M's documented dislike of coriander I didn't subject him to those ones, but I can attest to just how good the breads are when flavoured. You could easily add other spices depending on what you were serving them with. 

The only thing I would say about these is that they don't keep. They were OK the next day for lunch with my soup, but after that a bit inedible. Definitely a recipe that's better made as you need it and happily, one that's easy enough to do just that with. 

Baby, baby, baby Oh: Baby starter - week two

The eagle-eyed, and alert amongst you will have noticed that this isn't actually week two, but rather week three. Week two passed me by in a flurry of running, Guide admin, meetings and sleep in a bid to fight off a bout of sinusitis (I lost that battle).

This morning, for some reason awake and alert much earlier than I needed to be, I took the early rising as a sign and decided to feed baby starter, and start another loaf of sourdough. Honestly, I was a bit confused by the instructions on Baker and Loaf about feeding a starter you're trying to keep alive (albeit dormant in the fridge until you're ready for it) so I just went with what was in my head and followed Day four's instructions for feeding:

• Stir in any surface liquid
• Add 35g tepid water
• Add 25g bread flour (strong) and stir in

Duly fed, baby starter perked up immensly and is looking remarkably healthy on the worktop. I'll leave her there till tonight - give her another stir and pop her back in the fridge.

Before I did this I took out 25g of baby starter and popped that into a bowl with (as per Day five's instructions)

• 90g tepid water
• 75g bread flour

Everything was stirred in, and the bowl covered in clingfilm. From what I learnt last time I will leave this for a good 24 hours to do it's thing (how incredibly technical I am). This is because I learnt last time that my flat is chilly and starter's don't like to 'do their thing' at less than 20 degrees. That said, I'm sure I can muster up some washing to tumble dry and I'll pop the bowl back in the bathroom.

I'll come back and update this post tomorrow, to let you know what I'm doing on Day 6 mark 2. I know from last time that I'll worry less about the prescribed time and let it do it's thing nice and slowly in my parky house.

*Apologies for the Justin Bieber reference. I suspect some of my Guides would be eternally proud. I'm actually despairing of myself

Meal Planning Monday: The Leftovers edition

Every day in every way I'm getting better and better. Truly. Cast off, headaches diminshing (albeit slowly), the sunshine and glorious spring weather are definitely helping. Finally this week I'm back in the classroom which I think will be the clear indicator about how much better I really am. Fingers crossed it goes as well as I hope.

Last week in the Pantry was a busy one - did you see my giveaway? Did you? Did you enter yet? Go on, you know you want to.

We have a four day week at work, so in theory less to think about, and we're off to M's parents at the weekend. I had hoped to recreate my Christmas success with a slow roast shoulder of lamb for Easter Sunday, but as we have M's house on the market, and you can't swing a cat in my house for fear of hitting the rocking chair or wardrobe - it was clearly the logical decision.

For some reason I have leftover roast chicken and roast pork in the fridge, so need to use those up this week. My natural instinct for roast potatoes and steamed veggies only goes so far.

Breakfasts, for me will be yoghurts and fruit (fresh or frozen). Although I do have some sourdough left over from my treat breakfasts at the weekend that I may sneak in there.

Lunches, I got some lovely rocket in last week's veg box, so that with carrot and pepper sticks and houmous.

Baking, I want to finally get those individual simnel cakes in the oven this week - as I've got neither Brownies nor Guides to get to, I'm hoping I'll be more successful. If I've got some spare time for a really slow rise after all of that, then some hot cross buns, using Scottish Morning rolls as a basis for the recipe, but sweetening the dough with dried fruit steeped in some form of alcohol (or tea if I'm feeling abstemious).

Dinners:

Monday - Chicken and spinach curry (my Dad's recipe which I have still never managed to blog) with brown rice/ naan

Tuesday - Leftover slow roast pork with baked sweet potatoes and steamed cabbage

Wednesday - I've got half a chorizo to use up so Chorizo, pepper and butternut squash chilli

Thursday - let's hope for leftovers of the above. With greek yoghurt to take out any heat.

Friday - I'll be doing parental IT for the day, so fingernails with a side order of gin? I'm sure Mum will sort out something lovely.

Be sure to pop over to At Home with Mrs M to see what everyone's up to this Easter week.

A person can develop a bad, bad cold: Split pea soup and soda bread

If you follow me on twitter you'll know this has been a poorly week in Penelope's Pantry. I've been completely wiped out by a virus/ infection that's manifesting itself through recurrent migraines. As you can imagine all thoughts of food and cooking have long gone out of the window, but by Friday I was just starting to feel a bit less like death warmed up. Then M came home from Newcastle. With the same bug/ virus. Now despite the fact that I have no energy, I've turned on Accu Broadway and am cooking my little heart out. I knew we needed some hearty, easily digestable, healing food and so I turned to Nigella.  I knew her recipes wouldn't fail and that I was bound to find something in one of her books that would sound attractive and not require much brainpower. Soup it was.

I've added this to Maison Cupcake's Forever Nigella blog hop for January - be sure to pop over and have a look at all the entries.

Nigella's Split Pea and Frankfurter soup (with a couple of Pantry amendments)

2 cloves garlic
1 celery stick
1 carrot, peeled
1 onion, peeled
500g yellow split peas
1250ml vegetable stock
Pack of frankfurters - I used Waitrose's own brand
1/2 tsp ground mace
3 tablespoons of rapeseed oil

Blitz the vegetables and garlic up in the food processor, and tip into the warmed oil in a large pan
Soften gently, but don't allow to colour
Add the mace, and stir in so it's evenly distributed
Add the split peas and stir in
Add the stock (I just used 4tsp of Marigold veg bouillon in a litre and a quarter of water)
Bring to a gentle boil, pop a lid on your pan and turn the heat down and cook for an hour
I found I needed to add another half a pint of water as my lentils had absorbed all the water making this more like a casserole in consistency than a soup
Add your chopped up frankfurters, then adjust your seasoning to taste (as they're quite salty I found)

At this point I felt that the soup was missing something so added a teaspoon of lazy chilli, once stirred through you don't get a huge kick of chilli but it adds a much needed warming depth. You could equally add fresh chilli at the start but it retained some of it's freshness by not cooking it through.

Serve hot with soda bread.

No Knead Soda Bread, based on this recipe but amended slightly

300g malted grain bread flour
1 pot buttermilk 284ml (isn't that an odd amount?)
1 dsp baking powder
1 tsp sea salt


Preheat your oven as hot as it will go
Put the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl and mix through roughly with clean hands
Add the buttermilk and mix (again, by hand) until you have a soft, pliable dough. I needed all the buttermilk, despite the original recipe stating less, but flour is a moveable feast, so if you don't need it all don't fret, everything just needs to come together.
Dust your worktop and hands lightly with more malted flour, and shape the dough into a round (now, if I can manage this with one arm in plaster anyone can)
Cut two dints in the loaf with either your spatula or a sharp knife

Bake for 20ish minutes - I do this on a pizza stone, as it normally results in a nice crispy bottom for loaves that aren't in a tin. Mine today took about 40 minutes, but that's probably down to having a slightly wetter dough. It's done when you can tap on the bottom and it sounds hollow, and when the top is lightly crusted.

That's our poorly Pantry tea tonight, it'll be served cwtched up on the sofa, under blankets hopefully with a shockingly fabulous film on in the background.

Iced buns - a Tea Time Treat this weekend?

I don't normally hold with reposting, but Karen from Lavender and Lovage mentioned the Tea Time Treats challenge on Twitter, and although I'm going to make some eccles cakes tomorrow I think of these iced buns as the ultimate tea time treat - in a real regresssion to my childhood. They're also ideal as a weekend project if you want to stay in the warm, and busy yourself in this post Christmas lull.

Making the buns was straightforward, as regular readers know, I like breadmaking - I find the kneading and proving a soothing, restful process (I never said I was normal) and despite these being a fairly vigourous knead, I spent a happy afternoon pottering in the kitchen.

I love that the icing is water icing (I think the adults amongst you call it glace icing, but I call it water icing with the Brownies and so that's what we're calling it here) as it just reinforces, what a lovely, family bake these are. Kids could easily help with kneading, shaping the dough and icing the buns. It's only when you start to want to pipe the cream and jam that this becomes properly technical.

As I may have mentioned on twitter I was blown away by the evenness of my bake, and how lovely the buns looked when they came out of the oven. It was quite a pull to leave them to cool.

I used home made jam from earlier in the summer, and because I like things jammy, refrained from piping this on, instead spreading the cut inside of the bun with the warmed, fruity jam.

Because 12 buns is simply too many to have in my house at any one time, I gave 8 of these away as a Random Bake of Kindness, to my upstairs neighbours. I've saved 4 for Mark and I though. 

The recipe I used was adapted from Paul Hollywood's Iced buns - please see my updated post for my own full method. 

Great British Bake Off - Technical Challenge: Iced Buns

For the record, these are NOT Iced Fingers. They don't have cream and jam in. These are iced buns. So there Great British bake off. I know this as I was never allowed the ones with cream and jam, as 'they weren't for children' so this was a natural place to start my investigation into the Great British Bake Off technical challenges. I will be ignoring the macarons. Macarons terrify me. If you start talking macarons I WILL hide behind the sofa.

Inspired by Utterly Scrummy and the post show masterclasses, I thought I'd have a go at some of the technical challenges from the Great British Bake Off. No I'm not practicing for next year before you ask, and yes there is more than a passing resemblance between me and Jo, and yes we're both from Essex, I'm just blonder.

Making the buns was straightforward, as regular readers know, I like breadmaking - I find the kneading and proving a soothing, restful process (I never said I was normal) and despite these being a fairly vigourous knead, I spent a happy afternoon pottering in the kitchen.

I love that the icing is water icing (I think the adults amongst you call it glace icing, but I call it water icing with the Brownies and so that's what we're calling it here) as it just reinforces, what a lovely, family bake these are. Kids could easily help with kneading, shaping the dough and icing the buns. It's only when you start to want to pipe the cream and jam that this becomes properly technical.

As I may have mentioned on twitter I was blown away by the evenness of my bake, and how lovely the buns looked when they came out of the oven. It was quite a pull to leave them to cool.

I used home made jam from earlier in the summer, and because I like things jammy, refrained from piping this on, instead spreading the cut inside of the bun with the warmed, fruity jam.

Because 12 buns is simply too many to have in my house at any one time, I've given 8 of these away as a Random Bake of Kindness, to my upstairs neighbours. I've saved 4 for Mark and I though.  

Ingredients

Dough

500g/1lb 2oz strong white flour
50g/1¾oz caster sugar
40g/1½oz unsalted butter, softened
2 free-range eggs
2 x 7g/¼oz sachets instant yeast

2tsp salt

150ml/5fl oz warm milk

140ml/4½fl oz water

Icing

200g/7oz icing sugar
5 tsp cold water

Filling

200ml/7fl oz whipping cream
100g/4oz strawberry jam
icing sugar for dusting

Method

Preheat the oven to 220C/425F/Gas 7.

To make the dough, place all the ingredients into a large bowl, holding back a quarter of the water. Stir the mixture with your hands, then slowly add the remaining water to form a dough and knead in the bowl for four minutes.

Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead well for 10 minutes or until the dough is smooth and elastic.

Return the dough to the bowl, cover with a damp tea towel and leave to rise in a warm place for one hour.
Divide the dough into 12 pieces, each about 70g/2½oz, then roll into balls and shape into fingers about 13cm/5in long.
 Place the dough fingers onto a greased baking tray, leaving space for them to double in size, then set aside in a warm place for 40 minutes. They should just touch each other when they’ve risen.

Bake in the oven for 10 minutes then set them aside to cool.

 

 

 

For the icing, sift the icing sugar in a wide bowl and gradually stir in the cold water to form a thick paste. I needed far less than 5tbsp of water to get the thickness needed to coat the top of the buns. Well, actually a lot more than 200g icing sugar as I blithely trusted Paul Hollywood and added all the water.

Dip the top of the cooled fingers into the icing, smoothing it with your finger, then leave to set on a wire rack

Lightly whip the cream and spoon it into a piping bag fitted with a small nozzle.

Sliced the iced fingers horizontally, leaving one long edge intact.

Warm 1tsp of jam per bun and spread one side of the iced buns with the warmed jam

Pipe in a generous line of whipped cream into the middle of each finger, Dust the iced fingers with icing sugar and serve (or give away)

 

 

Good Morning, Good Morning to you! Scottish Morning Rolls

Welcome to part three of my series of recipes from Bread Matters by Andrew Whitely. If you haven't seen the other insallments, then look here, and here for Wholemeal Bread and Milk bread, which introduce you to my somewhat wittery prose, and also two different ways of making bread. This post looks at using a sponge and dough method.

Well I have to say I could get used to not working, it's only day four, and I've been so busy. Naturally I've injured myself, but that aside, I've been swimming each day, run errands, done lots of walking and have got myself closer to up to date on life, the universe and everything. It's surprising how much there is to do and being poorly has naturally got in the way of late.

Anyway, as Monday dawned, bright and beautiful, I was already ahead of the game, the sponge for my Scottish morning rolls was merrily doing it's thing on the window ledge. I'd made it Sunday afternoon, in pretty much minutes, covered it with a carrier bag, and left it be until the morning. Like sourdough, a sponge appeals to me because a lot of the work is done by the dponge itself, my intervention is practically nil. Not that I'm completely lazy or anything. Well not much.

Anyway, Andrew says in the book that this recipe can be applied to all kinds of bread - and I think I'll try it with a loaf next week sometime. What you'll notice, in comparison to both the wholemeal and milk breads is the reduction in the amount of yeast and the extension of the initial prove. This for me is brilliant, and for people like myself who avoid eating bread because of that bloated feeling commercial bread can give you, this doesn't. At all (for me, anyway) because the yeast has fed upon the sugar available. The recipe makes a dozen rolls (although if you made slightly more even sized ones than I did you could easily get a baker's dozen)

The overnight sponge

1tsp fresh yeast
130ml tepid water
50g stoneground strong wholemeal flour
100g strong white flour

Dissolve the yeast in the water, and add it to the flours
Mix until all the ingredients are thoroughly combined (I do this with my hands) You don't need to knead the sponge, since the gluten develops over time.
Put this into a big mixing bowl
Cover with a lid or poythene bag, and leave at room temperature for 12-18 hours. As it was so hot last weekend, I left it on the window ledge so that it was slightly cooler.

Off to bed for me, only to wake up in the morning (very geekily) super excited about my sponge and dough. Yes I know I need to get a life. What can I say!

The final dough

Overnight sponge
350g Strong white flour
100g Stoneground strong wholemeal flour
1 tsp salt
270g water
1 tablespoon olive oil

So Andrew says (I'm calling him Andrew now, I figure three recipes and repeated bedtime reading, we're past Mr Whitely these days) to have a good sniff of the "fruity, beery, slightly vinegary aroma" Don't do this too early in the morning. Certainly not before your first cup of tea. The reason it's collapsed down (that's what's supposed to happen) is because the yeast has run out of food, and the gluten collapses because the enzymes have stretched it beyond where it wants to be during fermentation. The enzymes working like this, so slowly really soften the gluten.

Mix the ingredients together into a soft dough
Knead until it is silky and slightly stretchy - I needed to flour my worktop more than usual as this was a sticky dough for me. I expect the heat didn't help.
Leave to rise for 1 hour - this gives the yeast an opportunity to use the fermentable sugar in the new flours.
Divide the dough into 12 equal pieces (if I could find my baker's friend, this would be ideal, but it seems to have got lost in the move so I used a sharp knife. Something tells me that tearing at the dough would knock too much of the air out of it).
Mould each one by rolling it on the work top. I rolled them into a round between my (floured) hands much as you would playdough. Then dip it into a bowl of flour - I used the malted flour I haven't used since the first wholemeal loaf.
Place the rolls about 2cm apart on a lined baking tray. Give each roll space to rise.
Cover the tray with a loose polythene bag, I left them to rise until doubled - this took about an hour in my very warm flat. You know they are ready when they are touching their neighbours.
Bake in a hot oven - 230 degrees - for 5 minutes, then turn the heat down to 210 degrees and finish off. Mine took about 20 minutes.
To check, tear one bap away from the others, and check it's top and bottom crust. I know Andrew says not to, but I tap the bottom and if it sounds hollow then that to me says it's done.

These have been great. Kept in the breadbin, they've lasted beautifully over the week. Mark has had them for lunch each day, and I had them yesterday, somewhat overfilled with pulled ham from the hock mixed in a mustardy mayonaisse. A slightly sweet, malty roll that's soft but not pappy, and has a tasty but not mouth killing crust. Definitely a winner.

With jam and bread... and bread... Milk Bread

This is my second recipe from Bread Matters by Andrew Whitely, and I am just loving getting back into breadmaking. In the same way as I'm enjoying preserving, there's something soothing and reaffirming into making something out of very little, about making things stretch, in the repetition, thought and work put in to this type of cooking. Unlike baking which always results in something demonstrably decadent, jams and bread are things you need. Things that by making yourself you don't have to buy, and are therefore good uses of my time, and ingredients I might otherwise not use. Well, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. Clearly I'm a displaced 40's housewife. With a veg box. It could happen!

What's really interesting about Bread Matters, is that it's not just a recipe book, as you progress through the recipe pages, you're learning about different techniques of breadmaking and why the yeast works as it does. Now for a science phobe such as myself - seriously, I'm completely phobic - my last meeting with science was my GCSE exam and all I remember is staring vacantly at my left hand trying desperately to remember what the rule was I was supposed to know about that linked to it, whilst not hyperventilating or vomiting. If people had linked science to food, art or musicals I would have been a scientist by now. Still my double B in science seems to set me up for understanding yeast.

In the milk bread, it's the full fat (still only 4% before those of you on diets have a coronary) milk that softens the crumb. It's noticeably different to the wholemeal I made last week. Soft and flavourful, the sort of bread that reminds me of childhood (why I don't know, maybe it's my misspent youth reading Enid Blyton novels). Clearly not my childhood. Whilst you can't taste the milk, there is a mild flavour of something different from the wholemeal. Mixing the strong wholemeal and strong white flours also makes the flavour milder.

Again it was such an easy, soothing way to spend an evening - I would say to anyone who hasn't made bread themselves to try it, Andrew Whitley's book really does give you a framework for home breadmaking, and also helpful hints and tips. All I'm doing is a recipe and a fair amount of nonsensical chat.

I should probably also state that I have nothing to do with Andrew Whitely, and bought the book myself, I am just this evangelical about home breadmaking.
Sorry, I went slightly off piste there didn't I? Erm where was I? Evangelical about good, home cooked bread. Quick and easy. If you have the money a breadmaker makes it even easier, if you don't - I personally prefer to do it by hand.

Recipe: Milk Bread

260ml Whole milk
5g fresh yeast
200g strong wholemeal flour
200g strong white flour
tsp salt

1 egg, beaten with a little milk for the glaze (not to self, I must get a pastry brush)

Dissolve the yeast in the milk
Combine all of the ingredients in a mixing bowl, then turn out onto the worktop and knead for 10 minutes
Let it rise for 2 hours (as before, in the bowl, covered with a plastic bag)
Then divide the dough into two peices - one about 500g, and the other of the rest (about 150g)
Divide the larger peice into 4, stretch out to make small loaves and put in a loaf tin so they're touching (that'll make more sense if you look at the picture up top)
Have a go at twirling, plaiting or knotting the other bit, after making it into a longish sausage
Brush with the glaze
Leave for another hour to prove again
Preheat the oven to it's top temp and turn down to start baking at 210 degrees.
After 10 minutes turn it down to 190 and leave the loaf for 30 - 40 minutes, the twirly, knotty plait cooks quicker - in about 20 minutes.

This was really nice spread thickly with butter and (homemade, naturally) strawberry jam! The plait was demolished in two days by Mark and myself. That's fast.

The Bakers wife: because bread matters, really matters

Over the last weeks I've had a lot of time on my hands, and when my eyes have been OK I've been re-reading Bread Matters by Andrew Whitely. I've been taking more notice of what I've been eating, and despite trying to keep processed products at a minimum, my need for toast and marmite has meant that I've been eating more processed bread than I would like and before I got unwell I was eating a lot of sandwiches, the death of Mabel meant that these were all mass produced.

Naturally I would prefer to be baking with a new baby Mabel, but in the absence of a new leaven I went out to buy some yeast. Ideally fresh, but sadly Waitrose seem to have decided they neither sell nor give out fresh yeast. However, I did manage to get some stoneground wholemeal flour, although my bid to get something that's relatively local was not successful as Waitrose's most local flour was from Canada. Yes, Canada. North of North America. Confused? I was, and have put a call into Customer Services to ask about why they aren't stocking any British bread flour.

So the plan is to work my way through the bread recipes in Andrew Whitely's book seeing how easy, tasty and successful they are. In order to avoid turning into a yeasty blob, I'm going to only bake once a week, and will be passing much of it on to the ever grateful Mark, colleagues and friends.

My first bake has been (appropriately) Basic Bread - it's a 4 hour bread - and the only error I've made is to forget to keep a peice back to use as 'old dough'

Makes 1 large or 2 small loaves
600g stoneground strong wholemeal flour - I used 400g wholemeal and 200g of malted flour for a sweeter taste
1tsp sea salt
400ml water
1.5 heaped teaspoons of yeast - I used dry as I couldn't get fresh
Linseeds for the top

Put the flour & salt in a big bowl
Mix the yeast in the warm water until it starts to froth, add the liquid to the flour and mix with your hands until you have a ball of dough
Tip this out on the worktop and knead for 10 - 15 minutes
Put back in the original bowl, and leave to rise for 2 hours, covered with a plastic bag
Split into 2, and stretch/ knock back to fit 2 buttered loaf tins
Put somewhere warm, covered with a plastic bag again until it's doubled in size
Bake in a 230 degree oven for 10 minutes, then turn down to 200 degrees for a futher 30 minutes
Tip out of tins and leave to cool on a wire rack

Enjoy! Next week, Milk bread

Take me to the world: Jess blogs me!

Not a recipe in this post, but some news and updates on life in my teeny flat of wondrousness. I've finally managed to book a veg box delivery, for next week from Riverford Organics I wanted to know where my veg and fruit were coming from and also felt slightly distanced by the big business feel of the veg box scheme I had been using, combined with getting damaged produce every week. Riverford seems a little more expensive at first glance, but I'll blog next week and let you know what I got and if it inspires me to do or try anything new.

In other news, Jess of Dreaming Wide Awake decided to try out my posh pasta sauce - the one with all the wine. And very kindly she blogged it. I had thought about asking her to do it as a guest post, but she beat me to it, her linky is here I will master every pasta till it's right.

Jess is my go to person in times of need for wine advice, working as she does for Olly Smith. The wine he recommended for the pasta sauce was a Tesco one, Tesco Finest Nero D'Avola so if you're thinking of trying out the deep winey (it's a word) deliciousness of that pasta sauce then now is a good time to do so with  an expert recommended wine.

As I'm still without a starter, I'm bread baking with yeast at the moment, and am hoping to get a loaf on for a nice slow rise tonight so M has some fresh for his sandwiches tomorrow. I think I'll also defrost some of that fridge bottom pasta sauce I turned into pizza topping a couple of weeks back, let it down with some vegetable stock and blitz it so I have soup for lunch.

And finally a bit of a teaser for you... this week will feature my first every giveaway! Make sure you're a follower for a heads up!

Moving too fast

Photos above are anything and everything food related from my phone, as the camera is at my Mum's - a peril of being without permanent abode I'm afraid!

Once again I find myself compelled to start with an apology for a gap in writing. It's not that I've not been cooking, far from it - but circumstances seem to conspire against me being settled, and able to cook, write and post on a regular basis.

To explain further, shortly after mine and Jess' enchilada extravaganza, my ex-flatmate decided that she wanted to live by herself. Which is fine. But put me under pressure to find somewhere new to live in my local area at a time when there was (and is) just little movement in the rental market. Obviously as regular readers are aware, I need to balance my needs as a disabled woman with ensuring continuity for my Guides and Brownies, and of course I work in the Public Sector at a time when there is less job security than ever. Not a good combination with trying to find somewhere new to live, continuing to be productive in my job, and volunteering. So life has not been easy, I have been travelling the length and breadth of London on a regular basis, carrying my life on my back (I know! Bad plan for starters) with most of my possessions in that vague, uncertain place known as 'storage'. My favourite roasters, utensils, plates and cups, all packed away in copies of the Metro and taken away in a lorry.

Anyway, I haven't been as unfortunate as that suggests, I have a lovely boyfriend, who puts up with my need to completely take over his kitchen on a regular basis, and who in actual fact reminded me this morning that I needed to write something for here. My mum has turned a blind eye (and surprisingly, eaten) much of what I've turned out in her (far nicer than anything I'm used to) kitchen, including encouraging me to make the trifle for the Christmas dinner - more on this later too. Hopefully.

So, with support and help I'm getting along. As with many people with a long term condition my health has been seriously affected by the uncertainty and change I've been coping with. Regular seizures, a horrible bout of flu, and sinusitis have kept me indoors and largely aleep since November. Whilst I live in eternal hope of healthy stability, I'm also developing some patience (anyone who follows me on twitter and who is party to my frequent rages/ grumps/ whining about my health can roll their eyes here) with my health and trying to expect less of myself, and judge myself less harshly. Interestingly, with support I'm learning to rest more, to let other people pick up things and not try to do everything myself. It's hard to admit that as a young woman you need support but I'm getting there. It's interesting the lack of support that is available from the Public and Voluntary sectors in these economic times, and the expectation from Adult Social Care that friends and family will act as unpaid, unsupported carers just because one's needs are 'moderate. Although how 'moderate' and homeless sit together I will never understand!

Anyway, before I get up on my soapbox - naturally an adapted one ;-) - I'll tell you a little bit about my foodie exploits these past months. If that's OK?

Well we've had 2 pack holidays with the Brownies, and have done lots of cooking - the usual baking, but also from scratch meals as well. The girls universally enjoyed cooking 'normal' meals as well as fairy cakes, caramel shortbread, and 'armpit' fudge. I'm without camera at the moment but will endeavour to add that post later this week.

I've been involved with Sainsburys a little as a part of the launch of their Christmas freefrom range - I was invited to Christmas dinner with some lovely other bloggers and had the pleasure of sampling some lovely gluten and dairy free recipes and products. As well as the Taste the Difference wines and traditional lemonade. Both of which were gorgeous. The evening itself (and the tiramisu I made with the Gluten Free Mrs D were lots of fun, and one of my aims for 2011 is definitely to get involved more in the blogger community.

Sainsburys also sent me some of their Taste the Difference mincemeat to test early in December and I duly made mince pies for my boyfriend's father's birthday. I have to say these went down a treat, and I used up some pastry cases I had lying around after catering my sister's hen do as well as making my own pastry (top tip for pastry for mince pies - use orange juice instead of water to bind). Which does mean my dear readers that I have finally beaten my pastry demons. I am so proud!

Just before Christmas Kavey of Kavey Eats asked on twitter for our Christmas loves and hates, I very honestly admitted that my mother's 70's tastic trifle was a big hate for me, but that I didn't know how to broach that with her. Now I'm pretty sure that my mum doesn't read this (or twitter) but oddly enough she asked me to make the trifle this year, and I was allowed to deter from the typical tinned fruit in jelly, set custard with dream topping affair and make a spiced fruit trifle that wasn't dissimilar to my summer fruit fools last year.

What else is there? Mabel has been sorely neglected of late, so I'm going to give her a good feed tomorrow night, and with any luck (cross your fingers for me that she hasn't expired) and hopefully introduce my boyfriend to the world of leavened bread next weekend.

My skills with leftovers continue - this Christmas my turkey and ham pie spawned a recreation with chicken and leeks that has become a firm favourite in the repertoire. Oh and the addition of a slow cooker to the boyfriend's kitchen equipment has meant that I am casseroling with aplomb and an alarming frequency.

So that's where I am and what I've been up to of late, I hope it doesn't make for too dull reading. I'm hoping that 2011 has some stability in store for me, not least as I have a kind of plan in my head that would allow me to extend my cooking adventures out to a wider audience , but I'm not sure how one goes about making a job/ business out of what we love. Advice, mentoring and guidance is gladly received at this stage as my capacity for thought in a head that's full of flatshares, what's in my rucksack, and planning a Guide holiday that I've faithfully promised them yet utterly failed to organise!