Phew!  It's been a busy couple of days in the Bakery, with lots of loaves needing an overnight prove before being baked, hence the late update =)

This week we've been looking at non-wheat & gluten free baking.  Yesterday we made Oatmeal Loaves & a Russian Rye bread.

The doughs were mixed in the usual manner, although the Rye wasn't as tricky to handle as previous batches, it was a firmer dough, but we still just popped each portion into the tins without much shaping!

Our group made batched loaves out of the Oatmeal dough, while the other team made standard tin loaves.

And they came out a treat!  I much prefer the batched loaves appearance to the tins, which are lovely, but theres something really nice about the way these came out =)

The Russian Rye didn't look too shabby either.

 

We also made up some Chestnut Levains, Pugliese & Spelt Bread which needed to be retarded overnight in the fridges, ready for baking today!

The Spelt Bread was formed into 12 small rounds, which were retarded 3 to a basket, so when they were turned out, they had batched together.  Once they were cooked they looked a little like a catipillar, but great anyway!

The Pugliese was the favourite of the day; it's made with potatos & has a texture much like a crumpet (or pikelet).

Yestersay we also created starters for Cornmeal & Chilli Loaves, Semolina & Sesame Loaves, Buckwheat & Bramley Apple Bread, & a Barley & Linseed Loaf.

We had a slight disaster with the Barley & Linseed Loaves... The recipe called for the seeds & salt to be soaked together, which we did, but then we mis-read the rest & added the salt again to the dough... =/

We didn't spot the mistake until AFTER we'd divided the dough into the tins & sprinkled extra seeds on top, but oh well!  We were still able to rectify our mistake by popping the dough back into the mixer & adding more flour etc.

They came out looking alright, but needless to say they weren't our favourite loaves!

We made up the dough for the other three breads, but time ran out & the doughs were slower to prove than we'd have liked, so we'll have to bake them off tomorrow.  The other group however, managed to have their Buckwheat & Bramley Apple ready to bake before the end of the day, & they came out looking a treat!

Hopefully ours will look just as good tomorrow =)

They'll be baked off first thing, then we have the rest of the day to freestyle some loaves of our own devising, all within the non-wheat & gluten free range of course =)

I've already made up the songe & biga for my loaves, as they need to ferment overnight, but I'm keeping the rest of the recipes a secret!  You'll have to check back to see if the day's a success or not ;)