Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Tasty bread recipe

First off, the ingredients:

325g Strong white bread flour
325g Wholewheat flour
350 mls Water ( Or 300mls water and 50 mls buttermilk )
6 pinches of salt ( I don't weigh salt )
1 packet dried yeast ( 7g though T3sco pkts are 6g )
1 not too large teaspoon of honey.

Makin' it:
Weigh flour in a big bowl.
(Take out about 70g of flour and keep in a wee bowl for dusting.)
In your big bowl -
Add salt.
Mix into flour.
Add yeast.
Get 350 lukewarm water and put the teaspoon of honey into it.
Add water to flour in bowl.

Mix well with wooden spoon or hands.

Turn out onto floured surface.
Kneading one big lump can half wreck you, well it does me.
I cut the big lump of dough into 3 or 4 smaller lumps and knead them individually and squeeze the life out of them in my hands. This works !

When they are all well elasticated put them together and knead a couple of times and put the dough into a floured loaf tin.

Seal this tin inside a plastic bag and leave somewhere warm until the dough has mushroomed out of the top of the tin.

There are now two options.

You can put the dough into a preheated oven at 220 celsius or you can punch it down and leave it somewhere really cool over night to rise again.
This gives an improvement in flavour. I think so.

Sprinkle the top of the dough with water just before you put it in the oven, this gives a nice crunchy dark crust.

The loaf should be ready in 35 mins.

Take out of the tin and tap the bottom, if it sounds hollow it is ready.

Anyone daft enough to do this without oven gloves or the like deserves to get their fingers burnt.

Nothing like your own homemade bread.

Add two tablespoons of walnut oil for an extra flavour if ya like.

Sticking some rye flour in there works too.

Monday, December 18, 2006

1 st year anniversary

happy birthday to me.

The christmas do

I was out with my work colleagues last Friday. We started at midday and I lasted until 6pm when I was sprited away, pun intended, by the wife. My very own taxi service. A handy thing to have. The rest of the merry bunch stayed another 3 hours or so. I think I got out whilst the going was good. Well, while I could still stand that is. Today I have heard stories of grown men swapping shirts in the toilets. Did they mistakenly think they were at full time at a match?
Stories of younger male members of staff being sought out by similarly aged female members of staff and snogged in darkened corners. Lucky devil, oh to be young and know what I know now...a lament for another post. More hilarious stories of three cubicles in the female toilets being opened simultaneously after a vigorous bout of boking by three women of a more mature appearance. It is christmas after all, if you can't let your hair down now when can you?
I was quite boring and just got quite drunk and was in bed asleep by half past nine, in the evening. Serve me right for being wilder when I was young, I suppose.
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