From the category archives:

Bread and Cheese

Bread snatched from the jaws of defeat

August 12, 2009

Although I promised to, I never did deal with the baking session that produced, as a byproduct, the Best. Pancakes. Evah. Probably because it was too awful to revisit. The dough — supposedly 65% hydration — had absolutely no structure. Really, only a vague dread of wasting food persuaded me to pour it into the [...]

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Best. Pancakes. Evah.

July 10, 2009

I’d been looking forward to this evening all week. (How sad is that?) It was time to bake, or at least to prepare loaves to bake tomorrow morning. I’ll deal with that tomorrow morning, when the bread comes out of the oven for judgement. For now, lets just say that it was very scary. And [...]

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That blasted bread

July 5, 2009

As good as my word, in search of the solution to my sticky dough issue, I made a loaf covering with a tea-towel throughout all the fermentation. The result was not good. After rising overnight the dough, which started off as a stiff 50% hydration, was once again like waffle batter, only stickier. The problem [...]

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In which I wander down memory lane and come to a sticky conclusion

June 28, 2009

This whole “sticky dough” episode of late has been nagging at me.. Then I remembered, I had this problem once before. But did I write about it? I did! That time, I didn’t think much more about it than plastic bag=condensation, because there were all sorts other things going on with the dough. And the [...]

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Confounded bread

June 27, 2009

It felt very strange putting the bread in the fridge to rise, but I had to get to the bottom of this new stickiness. The next morning it had indeed risen, quite a bit, but there was something odd and unexpected. A little rim of water around the edge of the dough. Ahah! Condensation! I [...]

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Weird bread

June 21, 2009

Last week’s very sticky dough prompted me to try something even worse this week. I made a 55% dough (not very wet, I know, but wetter than I started with last time) thinking that I could try the stretch and fold method of building structure. Disaster. Last night the mixture was bubbling away, looking lively [...]

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Brer Jeremy and the Dough Baby

June 14, 2009

A sourdough, which had been doing its thing all night, looked just fine this morning. So I went to punch it down, generally a satisfactional kind of thing to do. It grabbed my knuckles and refused to let go. And this was a 50% dough, which should be reasonably stiff. Something — most likely the [...]

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Real Greek yoghurt

June 5, 2009

Aglaia Kremezi has the straight dope on Greek yoghurt. The stuff she ate as a child was not thick and creamy. Imagine that! If thick and creamy was required for a dish of, say, tzatziki, her family strained it specifically. That’s a relief; I can carry on with my home made stuff, straining if I [...]

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In a ferment

June 1, 2009

It is so easy to keep doing nothing when you’ve been doing nothing for a month or so. This inactivity has to stop, and today is as good a day as any. I’ve always enjoyed playing with ferments, and used to make yoghurt in a curious contraption with little hexagonal glass pots and a double-walled [...]

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After the migration

April 11, 2009

I know there are readers who don’t care that what they see here is now being served by a delicious new all-singing, all-dancing, super-spiffy server — but they might give silent thanks when they (or so I am promised) receive far fewer error messages in the future. For them, then, which is probably everyone except [...]

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Success, qualified

March 5, 2009

That was a very good loaf. Came out of the oven too late to photograph without flash (maybe in the morning) but had risen well but not too much, was cooked through, and had great crumb. Oh, and flavour. The details: did a stretch and fold first thing, then into a loaf tin 90 minutes [...]

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So many variables, so little time

March 4, 2009

Having somewhat grandiosely claimed a couple of weeks ago that I planned to be more mindful of my breadmaking, the time has surely come to report. Last seen, I had prepared a somewhat drier dough (60% hydration) and allowed it to rest overnight. Next day, I did the gentle stretch thing three times; that’s it [...]

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Who needs a hobby, like tennis or philately

February 17, 2009

No, this is not about Tom Lehrer’s lyrics. But a couple of nights ago a friend explained his interest in (not-so) popular music by saying “It’s my hobby”. I don’t really have a hobby, at least not as I understand them, although I do have lots and lots of things, too many, that interest me. [...]

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Mo’ better cheese

February 9, 2009

Did the cheese thing again yesterday, but unscientifically changed two variables. I was much more gentle with the curds, ladling them out quietly into a colander and letting them drain under their own steam. That seemed to be a good thing, leaving soft and quivering curds that formed a single mass. But then I divided [...]

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Holy Crap! It worked!

February 1, 2009

Just a couple of mozzarella balls, nothing much to blog about. Except for one tiny thing: I made them! At home! And it is all Barbara Kingsolver’s fault. I may have given the impression that her book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is not very good. That would be wrong. It has its faults, no doubt, but [...]

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Practical Microbiology 101

November 28, 2007

The blog has taken a back seat of late; we moved, we have no internets, we are tired, we have no time at work. But the whole chaotic jumble is beginning to sort itself out, witness the loaves: I cannot actually remember when I first started to bake sourdough bread. I know that it was [...]

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Bread details

December 7, 2006

I doubt that anyone is using this blog to follow events in the world of no-knead bread, but just in case, there’s a follow-up article in yesterday’s New York Times. Lots of people have tried lots of experiments, and the article rounds up some of them. But it does not mention my greatest discovery, which [...]

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Miracle of the Loaves

November 16, 2006

I know that everyone and her cat has already blogged Jim Lahey’s No-knead bread, as seen last week in the New York Times. That won’t stop me adding my take on the matter, late through no great fault of my own. That is, I’ve been snowed under at work, one reason why posting here has [...]

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It is risen again

August 19, 2004

The dough rose, was knocked down, rose again, and was baked. It was crusty. It tasted of sour dough. It was good. God, how I love practical biotechnology! One strange thing; the dough seems to have become much more liquid as it proved. I’m guessing that this could be because I covered the bowl, loosely, [...]

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Really sour dough

August 18, 2004

There’s been an odd smell in the fridge ever since I got back from hols a week or so ago. Actually, come to think of it, I think the pong was there more than a month ago, before I left. Last night I threw out some five-week old yoghurt, but this morning things weren’t much [...]

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