Hmm bread ... ...

Since our journey into being more self sufficient we have been making our own bread (for over a year now) and whilst people making their own bread isn't revolutionary not enough people do it.

You simply can't beat home made bread, I used to travel past a bakery years ago on my way to work and the smell was intoxicating, there's just something about the way bread smells when it's cooking, it's great.

For a while we used our bread maker and we were perfectly happy with the bread that came out of it, and it is a very handy gadget, chuck your ingredients in push a button or two and bread comes out, what could be simpler ? and to be honest it's not difficult to make bread by hand using an oven.

So why aren't more people doing it ? when I do the weekly shop I'm amazed at the amount of people buying loaves of bread, of all different kinds, and some can be quite pricey considering, I get funny looks when I'm in the baking isle grabbing packets of yeast and bread flour, I find this odd.

Anyway of late we've been experimenting with flat breads, these are very nice and you can add loads of different stuff to them for more flavour, like cheese or herbs or both :-)

I started to wonder what else you could do with the recipe, and it seems that by sticking to a set of basic ingredients you can do a lot (this may not be news to some people) so here's the recipe we've been using for the last few months to make all our bread.

Firstly here's a loaf I made tonight -

Just a plain white loaf.

The ingredients consist of 3 things, at least for a loaf like the one above.

Ingredients :

500grams of bread flour (we've been using white, but brown should be okay)

1 packet (7grams) of fast acting yeast, you can get this in boxes of 8 sachets.

250ml - 300ml of warm water (I normally use 275ml)

And that's it for a plain loaf, obviously if you want something a little more interesting you'll need extra stuff, but I'll go into that later.

The method is easy, but might make your hands ache a little.

Method : 

First put your oven on at 200 degrees (gas mark 5 I think ?)

Weigh the flour into a mixing bowl, then add the yeast and give it a mix.

Next add the water (make sure it's warm, but not hot )

Now you should probably mix the water in a little at a time, but I just chuck it all in at once.

Mix until it all starts to come together, then get your hands in and make sure it's all mixed together. Please wash your hands :-)

Now all you have to do is the kneading part, turn the contents of the bowl out onto your work top and start kneading, if it gets a little sticky sprinkle a little more flour onto the dough.

You'll need to keep going with the kneading for about ten minutes, but rather than just push it about tear the dough, grab it with both hands and tear it, then stick it back together, do this a few times whilst your kneading the dough, it does make a difference to the bread (well I think it does)

Once you've finished kneading it form it into a shape, for a flat bread you can flatten it out with a rolling pin, or you can just make it into a ball shape and slice the top like I did for the loaf in the picture above.

Place the bread onto a floured baking tray and cover with cling film, it's best to either spray the cling film with a little oil, or brush some on, so that it doesn't stick to the bread (a damp tea towel should also be okay)

Proving the bread will take about an hour, depending in where you put it, you can place it somewhere warm for an hour, what we do is put it under the grill, we have an oven with a separate grill, so when we want bread we put the oven on at 200 degrees and it heats the grill up a little, which as it turns out is really good for proving bread :-)

You can also place the bread in front of your oven, the bread should double in size (perhaps a little more depending on how long you leave it and how warm it's been) we find we only need to prove ours for 30 - 40 minutes using our grill.

Once it's proved you can then cook it (make sure you remove any coverings) this should take between 15 - 25minutes, but this may vary depending on your oven, or if it looks ready you can take it out and give it a tap, if it sounds kind of hollow it's probably done.

And you should end up with something like this -  

Brushed with a little olive oil.

That's about as difficult as it gets, now if you want to mess about with the recipe you can, it seems pretty easy to add extras without having to alter the recipe, for example if you want a cheesy bread you can knead some grated cheese into the dough, then sprinkle some on top of the bread before baking, you could also add some herbs in the same way.

I have also found that by mixing in a little caster sugar (normal sugar would do just as well) and some raisins you can make a nice fruit type loaf, you can also split the dough and make two smaller loaves, we do this from time to time, making a small raisin loaf and a small cheesy loaf.

Tesco, the yeast about the same, you get 8 sachets of yeast in a box, so for less than £1.50 you can make about 3 or 4 loaves, which is less than 50p a loaf.

Here is the original recipe, as it was intended, I would recommend making this as well, it's great bread.

Chorizo and thyme fougasse ---> bread recipe 

Go forth and bake fellow human :-) 

Thanks for reading.

Grrrrr ! Man biscuits, well sort of ... ...

I'm not ashamed to admit I like to dabble in the kitchen, I cook the Sunday roast (although not as well as my wife) we have recently been foraging for stuff, and have made blackberry jam, and I'm in the process of making blackberry wine (should be fun)

So when the weather is bad and the kids are driving you nuts (as mine frequently do) why not venture into the kitchen and do some baking, go on it's okay, men are allowed to do kitchen stuff :-)

I'm not talking about large scale baking, massive cakes and such like, I'm talking biscuits, they are great, and easy to make, the kids will love them, and you can feel pleased that you made them from scratch, and that they aren't full of preservatives and such like, believe me if your kids like this kind of thing you don't need preservatives, the biscuits won't last long enough to go mouldy.

So to the biscuit making, I use a recipe that my wife showed me, it's easy to do, and you can use it as a base for loads of different types of biscuit.

The ingredients.

Baking marge (the stork stuff is good)

Sugar, you can use caster sugar, but I tend to go for muscovado sugar, it adds a nice flavour to the biscuits.

Self raising flour.

A tablespoon of golden syrup (this helps keep the biscuits moist)

What ever you want as a flavouring, chocolate chips,coconut, raisins, peanuts.

Grease proof paper and a couple of flat baking trays.

I will give you amounts of stuff to make about 20 or so biscuits, depending on how big you want them.

100grams of baking marge

100 grams of sugar

150 grams of self raising flour

As for the flavouring, then this is up to you, but around 50 grams of what ever is a good start.

To make the biscuits.

First clean your hands and the kids if they are helping.

Add your sugar and marge together in a bowl and mix them together well, you want a creamy paste.

You can add the syrup here.

Next add the flour and mix again, until it's all mixed together.

Then you can add your choice of flavouring and mix again.

Once it's all mixed together you then need to get 2 flat trays and either grease them or cut a couple of sheets of grease proof paper.

Then grab small amounts and roll into a small ball and flatten out and then place on the tray, you should get about 12 or so on each tray, leave space around each one for them to expand.

Chuck them in the oven, you want to cook them for around 6 - 8 minutes on about 200°C keep checking them as they cook, when they are a golden brown colour take them out and let them sit for a few minutes, it's easier to get them off the trays once they have cooled a little, then you can put them onto a cooling rack.

When they are cool enough to eat..... eat them (always the best bit)

Here's some pictures of some I made the other day -

White chocolate and coconut.

And these - 

Peanut cookies.

These I made today, coconut with smarties (I know sweets aren't that good for kids, but there's only a couple on each cookie) as decoration, I found sticking the smarties on while the biscuits/cookies are hot helps them stick. 

With sweets.

And there you go, man biscuits, well sort of, but who cares they taste great, and when it's raining outside this will easily kill and hour or two of time, and kids love doing this sort of thing.

Thanks for reading.