MrsBrown's philosophy of life and stuff

New things

Thu, 08 Aug 2013 00:27:38 GMT

I'm a bit about the bright, new and shiny.

when I have to be especially productive when working at home, I have to go and find a new place to work. It needs to be somewhere I don't associate with sitting around reading the internet. So far in my working at home regime, I have worked; on my bed, at the kitchen table, standing at the laundry bench (that was pretty good) on the far couch and on the near couch. I have also worked with beanies, scarves and blankets for heating.

I've been getting sick of making bread. It helped for a little while when I had finally finished off the wholemeal spelt flour and could start on the atta flour. But unfortunately, 4 months is too long to store atta flour and it had gone rancid. Does anyone else want to join me in an order from Hindustan Imports? Or will I just head to the D'souza's at Preston Market?

Yesterday I found a new video on making bread and it might be the bright, shiny and new thing I need to get me going. It's an almost no knead method where you make a wet dough and leave it for ten minutes. then you cover the top with olive oil and form the dough into a ball, pushing the olive oil surface to the underside of the ball. You give it a few kneads and you have beautiful, springy dough that's not sticky. I'm giving it a second proving because I don't quite have enough sourdough for a good flavour and then I'll put it into a tin. the other new thing is cooking it when it has only increased in size by 50%. Yesterday's loaf rose to it's expect height with no problems. I need a better dough slashing device though - maybe for my birthday?

While I'm on birthday wishes, I'd also like a new set of kitchen scales to hang on my wall. My mum's old ~~tupperware~~ ones have a stretched spring and I don't trust them anymore.

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Breadmaking class outline

Mon, 21 Jan 2013 04:46:18 GMT

This was going to be a class outline for one breadmaking class, but I think there's too much I want to share to fit just one class. Here's what I can tell people about;

Ovens - history, construction, how to fire, how to cook stuff other than bread.
Bread - process, routines at home and at Festival, sourdough and yeast
Cooking bread without an oven - flat bread recipes, cooking techniques

And, now I think about it, I can also run;

Currant buns - tour of community bakery and watch currant buns come out of oven. Eat currant buns, materials charge of $2 per bun
Making faggots - kid friendly class on fuel for the bakery. Faggot makers will receive a currant bun.
Bread making with children - mucking around with dough.

Bread making -about 10am on Friday

Discuss flour - wholemeal, spelt, white
Discuss routines - sourdough and yeast, at home and at Festival
Make sourdough and shape loaves
Make sponge for next day (enough for current buns at current bun eating class on Sat)

Charge for materials - 0.5kg flour per person - $2 each?

Ovens/Bakeries - Friday about 3pm

How to fire - practical demonstration while talking
types of ovens - brick, wicker, cob
How used in period - central bakery, household bakery, communal bakery
Tools and equipment in the bakery

Cooking bread without an oven - in the morning sometime, 9am so the fire is still going?

Make the following breads

sourdough in dutch oven and on flat plate
flat bread - with yeast
flat bread - with shortening

Plan:

pre-make bread dough for playing with, shape half into loaf
pre-heat dutch oven (tiny or borrow one) (5min)
mix yeast flat bread - leave to rise (20 min)
mix shortening flat bread (20min)
roll out some sourdough bread

put loaf into cook in dutch oven (30min)
cook yeast flat bread on lid of saxburger/pizza stone (15min)
cook shortening flat bread (15min)
pull out bread

eat and enjoy!

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More thoughts about bread at Festival

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 02:24:30 GMT

In France the communal bread ovens are called four banal and, based on the memory of people who have used them, they are operated by each family in turn. I'm a bit confused by the concept that people would only have access once every three weeks - does that mean they would cook bread to last three weeks?

Here's what I'm thinking about for Festival;

Build an oven in close proximity to the Abbotsford campsite
Oven to fit at least 10 loaves, maybe 15 - kissing ok
Build a heavy weight (100mm x 100mm timbers) base to hold the oven off the ground
Fire the oven once or twice a day
Get people to bring firewood (the right sort- faggots!) in payment
Set up the roster based on the number of participants
Make a wooden peel
bring door, suitable mop, and hoe like implement. Also some way to safely transport coals (brazier on wheels?)
Encourage people to get a basket and some cloth to rise and transport bread. Try to find suitable baskets in op-shops etc.
Floured boards are also OK, but terracotta plant pot bases aren't because you can't fit as much bread into the oven.
organise kneading suitable table or trough on legs?
sort out flour storage suitable for 3 loaves per day for 5 days, 4 cups flour per loaf at 150g per cup = 9kg plus a bit, say 12kg.
Maybe this? could also solve the dough trough issue!
It would be great to do buns for sale on Sat morning (pay for extra bricks?) but may need registration for this and I'm not sure I can be arsed. (Just asked market coordinator, they're "non hazardous" food and will be cooked and eaten immediately so may not need to comply with all this)

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foodage

Sun, 06 Jan 2013 11:07:42 GMT

Some evenings we say "oh my god" and have a tin of tomato soup and toasted cheese sandwiches for dinner.

I'm a bit proud of this evening's incarnation;

the tomato soup was made with a can of tinned tomatoes and real onion, garlic, sugar and herbs.

the toasted cheese sandwiches were yeasty pancake/drop scones (no egg) with cheese put between them as they came out of the fry pan.

That's what you do when you can't even be bothered going to the supermarket to buy bread and tinned soup. Tasted quite good too.

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spelt bread

Mon, 12 Nov 2012 03:10:28 GMT

I finally found an online recipe for hand kneaded spelt bread - http://www.sourdoughbaker.com.au/recipes/wholemeal-spelt-sourdough.html

I made it yesterday and I'm still waiting for it to rise some more before I bake it.

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How to make some bread - Festival opportunity

Thu, 08 Nov 2012 00:35:25 GMT

I've been quite bread obsessed this year and I've been trying to work out how to include it in my Festival experience. Here are my thoughts;

I like the idea of a community bakery. A place where people can come and have their baking done. I imagine organising a group of subscribers before Festival, and then use the subscribers to make the oven and fire it each day. I guess people wouldn't only use it for bread - pastry could also happen as the oven cools.

The oven would need to be big enough for the number of subscribers, but not too big. It would be good to work out how many loaves can fit in a larger oven and how long it takes to heat up enough for a baking. Also, how much fuel. Maybe I could use tenbears oven as the basis for testing/ limits of subscribers.

Thinking a bit further, maybe it could be incorporated into the wine bar and get used in the evening too? No, I need it close to where I'm camping so I don't start hating it.

teehee! Perhaps I could make dough forms so people can easily carry their loaves to the oven? Need to check that they're period and in what form. They're called Brotform or Banneton. I think I like the fabric style best - you can use any basket and wash the cloth.

If the fire were started at 8am, assuming a two hour firing time we could all have bread by 10.30. I could put a table and sunshade over/next to the oven and people could drop off their bread dough in the morning and pick it up later. Also, I wouldn't have to change my morning routine too much. If someone got enthusiastic, the oven could be refired for a short time and buns produced at about 12. People would need to make their bread the night before and leave it for the final rise overnight.

If there were enough subscribers, it could also be fired at 3pm, for bread at 5.30pm. Bread for this firing could be made in the morning - first thing for sourdough, or lunchtime for yeast.

I also want to run some sourdough breadmaking workshops - including advice on how to fit bread into a Festival routine, period breadmaking equipment and how to use it. Maybe that could happen first thing Friday morning - making bread and then how to fire the oven could happen at 3pm. We could make more bread then too, for the next day.

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It's the little things

Sat, 28 Jul 2012 02:13:38 GMT

We leave for the US on Tuesday, I have a long list of things I want to do - some for the trip and some for leaving the household in shape to cope without us for 3 weeks.

Having started the "clean the kitchen task", with a side trip into "make bread for lunch", I'm stuffed and having a sit down. I think I'll need to persuade someone to go and get those antibiotics I persuaded the doctor into giving me a prescription for after having a stuffed up nose for more than a week.

Anyway, I made a sloppy bread dough and left it to rise and glutenise (no kneading required). Then 2 hours later I sprinkled some flour on top and used my bread scraper to get the dough off the bowl and turn the ball to cover the entire mass with flour. then I thought, "what am I going to do at Festival when I want to make bread like this?" Did they have medieval dough scrapers?

I have a plastic one, but it looks like you can also get metal ones with wooden handles.

vs

A summary of 19th C sources refers to a dough cutter and dough scraper. There's a lso a picture of a scraper from

Various utensils used by French bakers, late 18th century.

fig. 6. Fire rake
fig. 8. Swabber or scuffle
fig. 10. Wooden peel
fig. 11. Scraper
fig. 12. Iron shovel to draw out coals

(From Diderot, Encyclopédie, I, section on "Boulanger.")

The same source has this description of a dough knife or cutter: Edlin's 1805 Treatise, "usually of the size of a large carver, with a round point and blunt, like a painter's pallet knife.

OMG!!! I found a site that has historical tools catalogued by shape, profession and name.

The dough scrapers they have look really useful when you're dealing with a lot of dough in a dough trough, but aren't the shape I've been finding useful.

Looking a bit further, I find a "dough grater" (the pictures include the link to the page that has a photo of the actual object)

Hmm, You can also get a scraper in what seems to be the "modern" shape in wood;

More to come, saving some random awesome links in the meantime;

A real, 17th century portable oven, with measurements.

A collection o images that look like a recreation/used Tudor kitchen, with a lovely bread oven and possible copper combo.

Normandy kitchen!

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Sourdough is awesome

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 11:58:07 GMT

I prefer to eat sourdough bread. The sort that's firm and chewy. So when we got back from Festival I decided to keep my sourdough starter going and make bread rolls for lunch each day.

OMG! Sourdough breadmaking is so easy now I understand it!

Each evening I pour the starter into a bowl with 2 cups of flour, half a cup of water, a bit of salt and some quick oats (not keen on just white bread, but I haven't bought any rye yet). I knead it for about 2 minutes and, because the starter is already glutenised, the bread is then ready to form into rolls. I form rolls and put the tray into the oven to rise.

I then put a cup of flour and a cup of water into my starter jar and leave it on the bench until the next night.

In the morning I turn on the oven as I head to the shower and 25 minutes later the rolls are ready to go into the cloth sack I have for carrying hot roll to work. The rest are left on the table for the others to use for lunch. I'm only making 6 rolls.

If anyone would like some of my starter, I'm happy to share.

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