Sourdough - finally

As many people who love making their own bread, I have shied away from making my own sourdough - until now. I gave myself a push and asked myself 'what is the worst that can happen?'. So, now, finally, I am the proud parent of my very own sourdough starter. There are many recipes and procedures for sourdough and when you search the internet, you get overwhelmed with the amount of articles. Since I am a big fan of River Cottage - I went and got their bread book (already have the preserve & mushroom one). Not that I followed the recipe to the dot but it got me started.

And wow, was it worth the effort. Anyhow, I started the first day with flower to same amount of water, stirred it, covered it with a cloth and left it. The next day, I added the same amount of flour and water and stirred again - repeating for about a week. Some recipes tell you to throw half the starter out before adding more flour and water but I was too 'stingy' to do that.

On day 8 my starter was ready to be used. I mixed breadflour with water, salt and my wonderful young and pungent starter. Knead well and leave to rise for about 12 hours. After that, knead the bread dough on a floured surface for a few minutes and return it to the bowl and leave to rise again for a few hours (I normally have the first rise overnight and the second until I come home from work). Knead again until the dough is not sticky anymore (just like any other bread) and form it into a loaf (any shape you like) and place in the oven on medium heat.

When I visited Declan Ryan's bakery once, I saw that he sprayed a bit water into the oven when he baked sourdough bread - so I decided to become extremely professional and do the same - I repeated it about twice while the bread was baking. The result was a crusty bread with a soft inside. The smell of the bread was just amazing and there is no more satisfaction than you take a bite out of your very own sourdough bread - the taste was too wonderful to describe.

Yes, it is a lot of work for one loaf of bread - but my-oh-my - what a bread. Give it a try. Very good recipes can be found on www.sourdough.com and You Tube is full of how-t0-videos. Let me know how you got on.

Caz & Jan

Congratulations to Caz & Jan who got married on Friday. It was one of the nicest weddings I have been to (and I am not saying that because I am mad about the two of them). Both are amazing people and they made sure that everyone had a good time at their wedding. Caz looked simply beautiful and guess, Jan was the envy of every man in that church :-)

The ceremony was performed in St. Patrick's Church, Lower Glanmire Road and the reception afterwards was held at Fleming's Restaurant in Tivoli. Both are foodies so it was important that the food was exceptional - and it was. Caz & Jan are both very laid back people and they didn't want the seating plan and formal dinner - so they arranged for a BBQ at Flemings. And Michael Fleming did not disappoint. The food was amazing - I was lucky to grab a bit of the lobster - with all tastes catered for.

I was very honoured when Caz & Jan asked me to create the wedding cake for them. Let me tell you, I didn't sleep for about a week - I was so worried that they might not like it. True in their style, they didn't want a traditional wedding cake but 3 layers combining a chocolate biscuit layer cake, a Dutch spiced apple cake and the smallest one a fruit cake but no icing.....both don't like sugarpaste.....I am not the best in getting chocolate very smooth but I tried my best. Testing all kind of ganaches I came finally up with a lovely mixture that worked. Eve St Leger of Eve's Chocolate was a big help as she tried and tested some mixtures for me as well. Her chocolates are just amazing and there is nothing this woman doesn't know about chocolate.

Anyhow, Caz' favourite colour is purple and her favourite flowers are orchids, so it became clear very quickly that I am using these 2 components. Thankfully, they loved the cake and I was a very happy woman.

I also made the invitations, printed the boxes for her favours and made chocolates for the favours. I was happy to add to the sparkle of the wedding - 2 of my best friends had a marvellous day and I wish them all the best for the future :-)....by the way, I can also be hired as wedding planner :-)

A German Christmas

A GERMAN
CHRISTMAS
.
Hannah Scharf, Philip Dennhardt
& Master-baker Thomas Hueneburg
will
tell their stories and present their specialities.
Hannah Heubach will bring her traditional decorations.

Taste Lebkuchen, Stollen, Biernenbrot and many other Christmas cakes & biscuits
Crawford Art Gallery Café
Thursday 27th Nov at 7.30pm
Entrance 6 euro including tea or coffee

I was in bread heaven

...another Wednesday at the bakery and what a night it was again. We baked white yeast bread this time and learned that you can add sour dough starter to a traditional white bread...and please let me tell you that it was simply yummy.

Declan also showed us how to make the bread in a food processor using the blades. I'd say that my kitchen machine will be very busy in the future.

The highlight was the different breadforms like sunflower and party My personal favourite was the tomato and herb bread (it looked like a foccacia but was told that it was a fogash - I bet this isn't spelt right) which I was allowed to take home..and now guess what I did when I got home.

Declan loves to share his knowledge with others and it is a delight to listen to him. He is interested in getting gap year students in....so guys if you know some students who would like to learn the craftsmanship of baking... get in touch with schools to get the program started. Declan tried himself but it seems that the schools weren't that interested ...but I can imagine that there are some kids out there who love a good loaf of bread as much as the next one...

Can't wait for next Wednesday....

Love Bread

Last night I went to Arbutus Bakery in Mayfield to learn the tips and tricks from the master himself. Declan Ryan opened the door to his award winning bakery and shared his passion for bread with us.

He is in love with bread today as he was when he started out. His respect for his team comes through every time he talks about them. Currently he is working with 5 bakers, one of them an apprentice who he teaches to become a superior baker.

His repertoire on stories about bread and their bakers is endless and he loves to share. Last night we made the best Soda bread ever (brown 'cause this is the only real one'). We then went on to make brown yeast bread...it is amazing what science is behind every single step of the process (I normally just knead the dough until my arms are hurting and then I leave it to rest). His dough was very very (and I mean WET) and I thought that can't work but....et voila...it came out better than my best breads ever were.


I can't wait until next Wednesday when we will learn all about Sourdough. Watch this space for updates....

Happy Baking

My Baking Marathon

After Shaking our apple tree I ended up with a basket full of apples. And since Brown Thomas already opened up their Christmas Shop at the end of August, I decided to make mincemeat so that I am prepared when the first orders for mince pies are coming in (they are the yummiest). And since it would have been a sin not to make apple pie, I decided to make a deep one and ended of course up with to much pastry to jam tarts joined the parade. For some reason I also fancied to make chocolate brownies...you can never have too many brownies...or can you?? And all this baking makes of course hungry so I made a mushroom quiche for lunch....and after this, I had to take a big break in the sunny garden and enjoyed a well deserved Barbera del Monferrato Minola 2003...This wine is produced using traditional methods and the grapes are grown in a biodynamic way. the colour is at first almost a dirty red but when opened abit, settles to a nice rich brownish colour. The taste is almost smokey but with rich fruit flavour at the same time....you can imagine that the rest of the day was spent in idle sweet nothing...