Bread - Making vs Buying

I made bread last night. Just two small round loaves of wholewheat. Finishing up some bits of flour. I'm really pleased with them. Good crust. Nice crumb. I ate three pieces fresh out of the oven with super yellow salted butter.

And I got to thinking about the value of making bread at home.

1. It isn't always better than what you can buy. It's special, because it's homemade but Eau a la Bouche has better bread. But Tesco (or any big store that is producing hundreds of loaves) isn't going to be as good. So homemade wins against mass produced, but not fancy artisanal.

2. Ingredients: Flour. Flour is cheap. But what about quality flour? What's the difference between grocery store brand flour and the Shipton Mills I have my eye on? The Shipton Mills is twice the price of the grocery store. Will it make that much better a loaf? What kind/quality of flour do commercially produced loaves use? Is that one of the factors in E5 Bakehouse vs Gregg's?

I feel a challenge coming on. Will buy my Shipton Mills basket (currently at ten kilos of flour), make bread and report back. And maybe ask the nice bakery people in the market if they know anything about the flour their products are made from... requires further investigation.

3. Ingredients: Extras. My bread is flour, yeast, salt and water. There is a brilliant double page spread in Richard Bertinet's book Dough - one side is a loaf of homemade bread and the ingredient list. The other side is the store bought bread and ingredient list. Four ingredients versus a long list. No question. Make your own damn bread.

4. Time investment: Not that much really. I mean sure you need to do it but seriously - making the dough takes maybe 20 minutes? Then it's mostly leave it alone until it's ready to be shaped and baked. Hell you can even do the no-knead thing. Total active time investment is probably less than walking to your nearest bakery. Unless you're super lucky. In which case can I come stay with you?

5. Love. Well, there is that.

My Grandma on the Mountain could bake anything but she didn't bake bread. The story is that she made a loaf once and my Grandpa and Great Uncle Malc took it out in the backyard and played football with it. She never repeated the experiment.

The recipe for buns that my mom makes for holiday meals is from her Aunt Jessie who was a fabulous cook. I crave her apple pudding recipe often.

Baking bread at home is special. Maybe not for everyday, but always preferable over big store bread. And it fills the house with warmth and love.

Crumpets for Elevenses

Crumpets.

I have become obsessed with crumpets. Specifically crumpets with butter and red berry jam (strawberry or raspberry) at Climpson's alongside my flat white. These are best eaten for elevenses with either a book or a small pad of paper for jotting down random thoughts while watching the people and characters of Broadway Market go by.

Seriously though - I have started waking up thinking about my mid morning snack. In Toronto I missed them and thought about them - even went to the amazing kitchen store by the Toronto Reference Library to buy crumpet rings so I could make my own. (They were out but expected a shipment later that day.) When we got back from Toronto the first thing I did on Tuesday was to go to Climpsons. They were out of crumpets. My face must have been so crestfallen and heartbroken because when I went in today the guy brightened up and told me with a smile that they had crumpets today.

Vintage Style Crumpet

I think it's the texture mix that delights me - the crunchy outside, warm from the toaster and the soft inside with holes running with butter and jam. (You need to put butter on a crumpet. Butter, then jam. I feel very strongly about this, even though I don't do the same for toast or bagels or muffins.) When I bite into a crumpet I feel satisfied and full in the way that only satisfying a deep craving can make you feel. Just a simple crumpet. Go figure.

A Tart and A Flatbread

We had two lovely friends over for dinner and I made two Ottolenghi recipes from Plenty: the caramelised garlic and goat's cheese tart and the yogurt flatbreads with mushroom barley salad. I saw via Twitter that Gastrogeek was making that tart the same night as I. I found that terribly amusing. (I didn't put butternut squash in mine though I like the addition.)

Anyways, these little flatbreads are awesome! They're quick. You can get away with making just two (which I have since done). I love them! A few years ago I got Dough out of the library and on one of the first pages is a double spread - store bought loaf and ingredient list on one side, homemade loaf and ingredient list on the other. While you and I both inherently know that there are additives and icky bits in store bought bread it really brought it home to me and I am lucky enough to live close to bakeries and markets where I can get Real Bread most of the time. But there are days when you're too late to get a loaf. Or to lazy to go out. Or the shops are closed. And you still want bread, good bread, but don't want to go to the trouble of making a proper loaf. So I turn to various flatbreads. And this is my new favourite.

Yogurt Flatbreads

135g wholemeal flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
140g greek yogurt
3 tbsp fresh coriander

butter and oil for frying them up

Combine all the ingredients. Mix with your hands into a dry dough, adding more flour if needed. Knead dough for a minute or so until it smooth and uniform. Wrap it in cling film and chill for at least an hour.

Divide dough into 6 pieces. Roll into balls and flatten with a rolling pin into rondo discs about 2mm thick. Heat some butter with some oil in a non-stick frypan and fry the breads one at a time on a medium heat for about 2 minutes per side until golden brown.

Lemon Zucchini Pizza

I've been making the same pizza dough recipe for eons. When I still lived at my parents I watched Mario Batali on his show Molto Mario and he made pizza dough and I took it to heart, made it, loved it and made it my own.

But I've recently been given Jamie Oliver's Italy and I decided to go crazy and follow Jamie's pizza dough recipe to a T. Except I halved it.

I followed Smitten Kitten's inspiration for the lemon-zucchini topping (adding some roasted garlic to the goats cheese) and voila- lunch!

The new dough was fabulous, crispy edges, nice bite. I love the addition of semolina to the regular white flour. A winner. Jamie's pizza dough FTW!

12 oz. white flour
3/4 cup semolina flour
1/2 tablespoon fine sea salt

Just over a cup of warm water
1 tablespoon sugar
1/8 oz yeast

Combine the first three ingredients in your main bowl. Combine the last three ingredients, stir and let sit and watch the magical bubbles of yeast.

Make a well in the center of your flour and add the yeasty water. Start mixing with a fork. When it gets too difficult, get your hands in and mix and pull and knead the dough to a soft spring warm ball of luscious smelly dough. Let the dough rest for 15 minutes, covered on the counter.

Split the dough in two and roll out each pizza. Let sit for another 15 minutes, add your toppings and bake it in a ferociously hot oven on a fancy pizza stone for about ten minutes.

How to eat a banana

I don't like bananas. I don't like their texture, their taste or their smell. I dislike them in smoothies, or as fillers in juice. Peeling them grosses me out. I eat them occasionally because they're good for you. But I never like them. (Though I did like them in Peru. They were better there. Smaller.)

For the month of July C&I got an organic box from Growing Communities in Hackney. It has contained a variety of nice yummy things but it always, always contains at least three bananas.

The first week we ate them. Dutifully. The second week we ate them begrudgingly. The third week they sat on the counter and looked at me every morning and I just ignored them. Now it's the weekend of the fourth delivery of bananas and we have way too many of them and they are starting to get brown spots on them. And I cannot eat them with brown spots on them. I just can't. I'm not that grown up.

So this weekend I baked. On Saturday I made banana pancakes care of Nigella. (Verdict: Not bad, quite moist, but banana-y. Sang along to Jack Johnson's Banana Pancake song in my head. ) Today I made banana bread, inspired by Joy of Cooking but with extra bits of goodness (almonds and cinnamon). I still don't think I'll like it, but if I put enough nutella on it, it should be ok.

UPDATE: With enough nutella ANYTHING tastes good.

A Simple Lunch

The simplest of lunches – spoils from the market, served up minutes after arriving home. Fresh, crusty bread sliced thickly and served with tomatoes, fresh goat cheese and wild boar sausage.






And to finish: fresh blueberries.

Naan

There is something incomparable about naan, that delicious, almost ubiquitous Indian bread. I've heard tales about people who make their own pan-fried variants at home, but I have always been skeptical. After all, proper naan is slapped onto the side of a tandoori oven and fished out with metal hooks of questionable hygenic standards.

One of the things I miss about Toronto is being able to buy President's Choice (a brand that is the equivalent of Tesco's Finest) naan from the local grocery store. I've been on the lookout for a substitute here in the UK, and I think I've found it. Sharwood's makes a fantastic mini-naan, with four to a package.

And the best part? Instead of heating it in the oven, you put it in the toaster. That's right: toaster naan.

Lavendar Honey Bread

This looks lovely, doesn't it? And sounds good- delicately scented with a hint of sweetness.

All I did was take a batch of whole wheat dough and add a teaspoon of lavendar and a tablespoon of honey.

Subtle deliciousness.

Breadsticks/Grissini

I didn't cook at all last week. I'm pretty sure C did, otherwise I wouldn't have eaten. I can't remember. It was all a bit of a blur.

So I was really excited to cook Saturday night. Mike was going to come over after film fest and we were going to eat and drink and play games.

C & I spent the day wandering the city's various markets, visiting our butcher in the St Lawrence Market and buying $20 worth of cheese at Global in Kensington - lovely.

Then home to start leisurely cooking.

Except Mike didn't get into the movie.

So he and his friend Natasha came over a full two hours early, hungry and cold.

I didn't expect to eat dinner until 9:00. At the earliest. So, after a mad dash to tidy up a little (for Natasha, she was new. Mike's been around so long he's family and we don't have to tidy up for him!) I was happy that I had made bread sticks to nash on while the rest of dinner was being made.

Grissini

1 tablespoon honey
2 teaspoons yeast
2-1/2 tablespoons olive oil
1 lb. flour
1-1/2 teaspoons salt

Put 1-1/3 cups of warm water in a small bowl and stir in the yeast and honey. Leave it to froth and foam.

Sift (I actually enjoy doing this) the flour and salt into a bowl, then add the yeast mixture, 2 tablespoons of olive oil and mix until the dough clumps together.

Form into a ball and knead until smooth and elastic-y. Put the dough on a baking sheet and flatten it out to fill the pan, brush with the remaining oil and let rise for an hour or so.

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

Cut the dough lengthwise into four portions, then cut each portion into 8 pieces(or 5, or 4, whichever!). Roll, stretch and cajole the pieces into 8 inch long strips and then toss in the hot hot oven for about 15 minutes, until crisp and golden.

C's Commentary: Breadsticks. They were simple, lovely, and fed us during an antipasto, a soup main, and our pre-dessert drunken Uno.

Chicken Fingers & Cheese Bread

The other night I stumbled home from work and looked in the fridge. Nothing with which to make dinner, so I dragged my tired self to the grocery store with no clear intent. I left with a lemon, some chicken pieces and four limonata.

When I got home I STILL had nothing with which to make dinner.

So I made plain white bread and filled it with random bits of leftover cheese and green onion. Voila! Cheesebread. Remarkably delicious.

Then I threw the chicken pieces in some spiced yogurt (I wonder if leftover raita would be good for that?), then breaded and fried them up. We ate everything off of one plate with two dipping sauces.

Joyous.

Olive Foccacia

One of my favorite Italy memories is of focaccia from a bakery at the far end of the beach in Monterosso, in the Cinque Terre. I've eaten their delicious olive oily breads with my friends, my mum and C. See, the thing to do is to get your bread (various toppings, sold by weight), a cold drink (limonata, perhaps?) and wander over to the beach or start the hike through the vineyards and olive groves by way of an old goat trail until you find a suitable spot to sit and eat your lunch. C.and I chose to eat here:


Lovely, no?

There is nothing quite like the focaccia from Monterosso. Drenched in olive oil and light and chewy at the same time, it's one of those things that you have to eat on location to fully understand it's perfection.

That being said, I've been trying to bake it myself. I think I've found my favorite recipe and am getting quite good at it. Last night I made olive and rosemary focaccia to go with the mackerel. It was pretty damn good. I do think that the secret is the excessive amount of olive oil. More! More than that! More than you think possible because it's never quite enough.

Perhaps I'll have to go back to try it again before I get it completely perfect.