So this week has been all about sourdoughs! 

Wayne's on holiday, so we've been taught my Emmanuel.  It's been really nice to be taught by a baker with such a different approach to Wayne.  Emmanuel's a very instinctive baker, whereas Wayne is more methodical.  So we've had a little more freedom this week; Emmanuel's gave us rough outlines of what we needed to achieve, then let us get on with it, calling everyone together when he wanted to demonstrate a particular technique or method.

One of the first things we did this week, was to create our own sourdough starters.  Some of the class have already done this at home, but I haven't, so I found it really quite exciting!

It's so simple; you just take a couple of heaped tablespoons of rye or white flour, add enough water to make a thick paste, then mix it together by hand.  This is what mine looked like on Monday...

This was towards the end of the day, so they'd sat in a warm, but switched off oven quietly fermenting.  It's had to tell, but there are a few bubbles on the top of the white sourdough (right), & if you were to look at the side of the rye sourdough (left), you'd be able to see the bubbles there too  =)

This was the sourdoughs at the end of today, so they'd been fed with more flour & water four times since Monday, & by golly how they'd grown!  The white sourdough had gone a little crazy & had grown right to the top of the tub, before dropping back down again!  The rye had grown as well, but as that mixture is a little heavier & denser, it's not as easy to tell from the photo  =)

Both my sourdough babies came home with me today, & they're now quietly resting in the fridge, where they'll sleep happily until I need them  =)

I really want to come up with names for them, but I can't decide if that's a little crazy, or perfectly natural!  In any case, I think I should wait until I've baked with them before I go giving them names  =)

Anyway, back to the breads!  Emmanuel gave us four sourdough recipes to work with; a white whey sourdough, a beetroot sourdough, a tomato sourdough & a chocolate & currant sourdough.  Each group had to make all the recipes, but could make changes to the base recipe if they wanted.

The white whey sourdough was going to be fermented the longest.  We needed to make up the sourdough starter on Monday, using a small amount of existing rye sourdough, some white flour & whey.  The whey we used was actually from the cheese making we did last Thursday, so that was really nice  =)

On Tuesday, we made a poolish using the sourdough starter, & then today we made up the dough & baked the breads.  The poolish looked really promising; it had grown a lot & was full of bubbles, & the dough, though wet, felt really nice too.  There was some strength to it, so we were hoping for some nice breads.  We'd even put some of the lactic cheese we made last week through half the batch, to really emphasise the cheesiness...

Sadly, we had some difficulty getting the doughs out of the banatons once it came time to bake them off, & they didn't have a lot of volume to them... We think the poolish had been sat for too long in a too warm environment, so the wild yeasts had more or less exhausted themselves by the time they were baked off...  They came out of the oven really late, so I don't have a picture at the moment, but I'll certainly get one tomorrow, & let you know how they taste  =)

With made some tomato, chocolate & beetroot sourdoughs on Monday, then retarded them overnight & baked then Tuesday, so we could see what we thought of the flavours before deciding on any changes to the final breads.  In the end, we decided the beetroot would benefit from some horseradish through the dough, to lift the flavour & give it a bit of zing.  With the chocolate sourdough, we decided to reduce the amount of currants, & add in some pecans, cherries & cranberries.  We didn't make any changes to the tomato in the end.

This was our beetroot sourdough, with Monday's effort on the left, & today's amended (& improved) loaf on the right.  There's a big difference to the colour of the breads; the beetroot is much more pronounced in today's loaf, although we're not really sure why that is.  The beetroot was just grated for both batches, so we're not sure if the horseradish had an effect on it at all...  We autolysed the flour & water for today's breads, so the crumb structure is far better, much more open & with a better texture.

The tomato sourdoughs, with Mondays on the right & today's on the left.  Again we autolysed the flour & water for today's breads, so we have another much improved crumb structure & texture.  We also added more tomato puree, to give it a stronger flavour & better colour.

And finally the chocolate sourdough, with today's bread on the left, & Mondays on the right.  We didn't autolyse this time, but we did soak the dried fruits in water before mixing them into the dough for today's bread.  Mondays loaf was quite dry, whereas today's was much softer, so that was definitely a good idea  =)

The crumb structure was never going to be particularly open because of all the inclusions, but the flavour was much improved by using the cherries & cranberries  =)

We also had the opportunity to make a sourdough bread of our choice today, ideally working alone.  I choose to do a fig, walnut & star anise sourdough & made the starter up yesterday, using a rye base.

I was quite pleased with how they came out  =)  I haven't tried them yet, but I'm hoping they'll be tasty, although, thinking about it, I'm not the biggest fan of star anise... Maybe next time I do these I'll use different spices!

I've really enjoyed working with the sourdoughs this week; it's a much slower process, so patience is a must, but the vibrancy & depth of flavours you get from working with sourdoughs are absolutely worth the wait  =)

Well, it's been a busy few days, so I apologise for not updating before now!

Where did I get too? Oh right, I remember  =)

The School was due to play host to a gathering of Real Bread Campaign members, & Wayne had created a bread based surprise to greet them on their arrival.  I do recall promising to show you the completed item in all it's glory, so here it is!

We also provided a basket of our loveliest looking dinner rolls, just to show off  =)

I believe the day went well; sadly we students didn't get chance to participate, we were busy in our Minor classes, but a couple of us did get our Andrew Whitley books signed & meet the man himself, so that was nice  =)

There's a brief round-up of the day in pictures here if you're interested  =)

As for me, I spent the day learning about, & making, lactic cheeses.  Lee-Anna had started the milk culture off the night before, as it can take 16 hours for the milk to separate into curds & whey, so we had some milk to work with on the day.

We did get the opportunity to start our own batches of milk off though, so we'd have hands on experience of the process.  When it came to ladling out the curds, we choose two different approaches; one batch of cheeses would be made with chunky curds, the other with slim layers of curd.  The difference in ladling will produce cheeses with different textures, & it may also affect the flavours slightly  =)

We used a variety of different moulds, just to have some fun!  Once the moulds were filled, the cheeses needed to be left to drain, then turned, salted & rinsed, so it would be a few days before they were ready to bring home.

Luckily, there was plenty of cheese to eat that day, because we had an epic cheese tasting!  =D

All the cheeses on the board were of the lactic variety, with 6 goats milk cheeses, & two cows milk cheeses.  The two cows milk cheeses were actually the same variety, just at different ages.

Needless to say, we were very enthusiastic!

The purpose of the exercise wasn't just to eat cheese of course; the idea was to help us extend our sensory vocabulary, by really considering the cheeses, not just eating them!  We looked at appearance, aroma, texture, flavours & our overall impressions.  It's actually trickier than it seems; trying to find the words to explain how something as complex as a cheese really tastes, to break down all the elements involved, is something I think I'll need to practise.... Oh well!  =D

Of course, the best part of the day was the half hour we spent with Lee-Anna's goats!  One of the goats had given birth 2 days before, & Lee-Anna was really keen for us to meet them  =D

The goats were amazing!  Some of them were really friendly, or at least really keen on trying to eat various parts of our clothing.  One in particular, Blondie, seemed quite intent on eating my waterproof!  (She didn't succeed!)

The baby goats were so sweet, two tiny boys, just days old!  We had the chance to hold them, so of course I had to, & it was love at first sight!

They were so soft & warm, it was hard to let them go!  But eventually we had to; wellies aren't the best at keeping out the cold, & if we'd have stayed any longer, I'm quite convinced I'd have lost my waterproof to a hungry goat!

Today, we were able to collect our cheeses!  We were so pleased with them; they looked great, & it's such a relief to have made a cheese successfully  =)

It's a lovely soft creamy cheese, with that slight lemony acidity you'd expect from a lactic cheese.   I think it'll go great with some of the breads we've been baking this week.

Speaking of this week, we've been looking at sourdough breads, but I don't think it would be fair to tack a little something about that onto the end of this post, so what I'll do is talk about this week tomorrow  =)

Today was the last day of our adventures with super-hydrated doughs; we looked at a Ciabatta, made with wholemeal flour, sunflower seeds & sesame seeds, a Pane Francese, & a Pain Rustique.

As with the Ciabatta experiments yesterday, all the doughs had a hydration level of 85% or higher, so they were quite wet!  Wayne had his own little project to work on, so for the most part left us to mix the doughs ourselves, but was always ready to provide some advice if needed.  I think we all benefited from being left to it; it made us really think about the mixing, & what to look for, how to tell if the dough was ready, if it could take the full amount of water or if some should be held back.  I for one felt more confident about mixing such wet doughs; actually, considering how much water went in, they were surprisingly strong. 

Despite the apparent strength of the doughs in the mixing bowl, they were very soft still, & needed at least three folds to get some real strength into them.

The School had some visitors today; a number of head teachers from local Schools, who happened to pop into the training room just as our Ciabatta dough was ready for a fold, which I had volunteered to do!

So there I stood, surrounded by strangers, trying not to panic as I gave the dough a good firm fold.  Thankfully, despite nerves, all went well, & I even got a round of applause!  =D  Isn't it odd how nervous you can get doing something as simple as folding a dough, just because you're being watched? 

After that the teachers headed off on the next part of their tour, I breathed a sigh of relief, & Wayne put an arm round my shoulders & said "Well done"! 

The afternoon got quite hectic at times; as well as the three main doughs we were working with, we also had another batch of dinner rolls to make, this time with the addition of a chocolaty dough  =)  Tasty as they were & as fun as it is to shape dinner rolls, it's slightly stressful when all of the doughs are ready at the same time!

We managed it in the end though, & had yet another impressive collection of breads  =)

These were my dinner rolls; I went for a cannon style (which held up mostly, but one did collapse!), a simple single knot, covered in poppy seeds, & a slightly more complicated double knot, using white & chocolate dough  =)

From left to right we have the Pane Francese, then the Ciabatta with wholemeal flour, & finally the Pain Rustique.  All of them had a really great open crumb structure, & the volume on some of them was incredible!  I think of the three, the Pain Rustique was my favourite  =)

I mentioned earlier that Wayne was working on a small project of his own today... Well, tomorrow, a number of representatives from the Real Bread Campaign will be braving the remaining snow & getting together for an informal gathering, & Wayne thought it might be nice if they had a suitably bready welcome...

So, he started off with a rather smashing lattice affair...

Then, using a variety of different doughs (some pilfered from our doughs I might add!), he created a series of letters...

Now, I'm not going to post a picture of the whole creation, that will have to wait until tomorrow I think  =)  But it does look rather good  =D

Tomorrow should quite an interesting day; lots of quite well known bakers will be around, & hopefully we might get to meet them  =D  We'll have to see though, tomorrow is a Minor day, so I'll be spending most of it in the Dairy, but of course, we've got to grab a cup of tea or two, so who knows!

We'll be looking at lactic cheeses tomorrow, & (I'm rather excited about this bit) visiting some baby goats!  One of Lee-Anna's goats has had kids in the last couple of days, so we'll get to go see them!  =D

Oh, must remember to take my wellies tomorrow, & maybe even my Andrew Whitley book... Would it be cheeky to ask him to sign it tomorrow?? Oh well!  =D

Hello folks  =)

Well, we had a lot more of the white stuff over the weekend, quite a lot more in fact!  We decided to ditch the cars in favour of good old walking boots & waterproofs; embarking on an epic trek into School!

It took us rather longer than we had anticipated; we were a little late into School, but everyone was running off schedule because of the weather.  In fact there were only 7 of us made it to class!

We had a quiet day, setting down biga's for focaccias & ciabattas, then making up some slightly enriched dough & making dinner rolls!  We had 540g of dough each, to make 18 rolls at 30g.  Wayne asked us to choose 3 dinner roll shapes, then make 6 of each  =)

This was my tray, egg-washed and ready to go in the prover.  Wayne said it was a very nice looking tray indeed  =D

We had quite a fancy looking selection of dinner rolls by the end of the day, although personally I think they're a little small for a dinner roll...  Then it was time for a walk back home in the snow!  =D

Today, we set out to make up the focaccia & ciabatta doughs.  We did three different ciabatta's, all with a different hydration; one at 80% hydration, another at 90% hydration & the last at 100% hydration  =)

The focaccia is just such a lovely dough to work with, all soft & silky, it's definitely one of my favourites!

Once we had our doughs docked out & properly oiled, we got to choose our toppings!  Some went for the classic sea salt & olive oil, others chose red onions, some potato & rosemary... I went for olive & rosemary  =D

They were left to prove for a final hour, then brushed with more olive oil & sprinkled with sea salt, before being baked off  =)

I have to admit now to having eaten most of mine very soon after it was baked!  It's just so tasty!  =D

The ciabatta doughs at 80% & 90% hydration were fairly easy to handle, but the 100% hydration dough was really rather tricky  =/  It was, understandably, very wet & tacky!  There wasn't much in the way of shaping that could be done, just rounding off the edges & letting it rest for a final hour  =)

The ciabatta's were then loaded onto peels & into the oven!  As you can see, we had a lovely open crumb structure, & that slightly waxy texture you always get with super hydrated doughs  =)

So all in all it was a very successful day  =)  Lots of wonderful focaccia's & ciabatta's to munch on, which is always marvellous!  =D

Hi folks, sorry for the delay in updating, it's been rather a hectic week!

As you know, we had lots of lovely snow on Monday, & it's hung around for the rest of the week, but it hasn't stopped the baking!  A couple of students weren't able to get in to School, so it was quieter than usual.

Tuesday saw us mixing four doughs; a wholemeal bread made with a sponge, a multi-grain soaker sourdough, a rye sourdough and a brown sourdough.  The only bread we'd be baking off that day was the wholemeal; everything else was to be retarded overnight, ready for baking off Wednesday morning  =)

Our wholemeal dough didn't come out quite as hoped; it was slightly over-mixed, so the bread didn't hold its mould particularly well, & the baked loaves looked quite sad in the end... The other Team however, had a great wholemeal dough, & their loaves came out looking rather swish  =)

We had another early finish; once the other three doughs were mixed & shaped, we only had to prepare the soakers & levains for Wednesdays bake, then we headed home.

Wednesday was a very busy day, not only did we have the three doughs from Tuesday to bake, we also had to mix & bake another five doughs.  This time a New York Deli Rye, a Pumpernickel, a Black Rye, a Volkornbrot & a Black & White bread, made with some of the Black Rye & a white dough.

I took charge of the Pumpernickel; this was a fairly wet dough, more so than we expected, so Wayne suggested we alter the recipe formula slightly.  We added another 500g of flour to the mix, which firmed it up nicely  =)  The other Team mixed their Pumpernickel after I did, so we let them know to leave out the additional water in the final dough recipe; there was sufficient water in the soakers & levain to hydrate the dough fully, & leaving it out meant they didn't need to add any more flour.

The day ran quite smoothly, despite there being so much bread about!  I had thought it would be a bit stressful, with people trying to get stuff in and out of the ovens, doughs potentially over proving, that sort of thing, but we had none of it  =)

And, all our breads looked pretty good too!

I think a lot of us have found that our oven skills have improved since our placements; everyone certainly seemed more confident loading & unloading the breads  =)  And, we've got these fancy new banatons, which give a great shape to the doughs, as you can see above!

We had so much bread!  It all looked so wonderful too; there were some beautiful cuts, & some great moulding on show.  I was particularly pleased with my scoring on these three brown sourdough loaves  =)

I do feel more confident scoring the loaves, & even Wayne noted that my technique has improved  =)

I really love the how coating the loaves in seeds, sesame & poppy seeds particularly, makes the cuts stand out so much.  You can get the same result from dusting the dough with flour before scoring & baking, which also gives a great result  =)

The Black & White bread looked amazing!  As you can see from the picture above, it's such a striking visual effect, & the combination of rye & wheat dough means you'll get the flavour of the rye, but without the heaviness  =)

Today was our first patisserie day of the new Term, & it was all about cake!  =D

We made some sponge drops & lady fingers first.  The recipe didn't use any butter, so the cakes were really light, & almost macaroon like in texture; a nice crisp shell, & a slightly chewy crumb.

We filled ours with a lemon cream & some raspberry jam, then sandwiched them together; very tasty indeed!

We also made large round sponges, using the same cake mix.  I was quite pleased with my piping, so I took a picture!

We then made a swiss roll, which again didn't use any fats, but did have rather a lot of eggs!  It came out quite nicely, & looked really lovely all rolled up & filled with cream & jam  =D

After that, we made a Madeira cake.  I've made Madeira cake before, but using a different method, & the recipe I've used in the past called for butter, where as this one wanted cake shortening.  Not very many of us are that keen on cake shortening, so while reluctant to use it, we did in the end, resolving to reserve judgement until the taste testing...

Sadly, the taste testing wasn't a great success, & it wasn't because of the shortening either!  You may recall, a little before Christmas, the trouble we had with baking powder.  Well, we had the same problems again; something in the baking powder was off, & it left a slight metallic aftertaste.  Even looking at the interior of the cakes, you could see the effect; the sponge was a lovely light golden colour, but got gradually darker & browner towards the base of the cake... Sadly, we had to throw the Madeira cakes away, but Clive says we'll try the recipe again with new baking powder  =)

The last cake we made was a lightly fruited cake, which again came out really nicely.  Clare & I made one large cake between us, & three small cakes.

So all in all, we had ourselves quite a selection of tasty treats!

It started to snow again around lunch (which today was an epically tasty mutton tagine, so good!) & we've a lot more forecast for tomorrow & the weekend, so all this cake might come in very handy indeed!

When I woke up this morning, I crept out of bed & approached the window, with baited breath...

Would the forecast have been right? Would I see a soft blanket of white when I pulled back the blind??

Indeed I would!  It had snowed!  Lots!  =D

Excited as kid's at Christmas (well, I was anyway!) we packed up the cars & headed off to School.  The snow wasn't too bad on the roads, so the journey in was fairly uneventful.

This week we'll be looking at rye breads, soakers & sourdoughs, so today was mostly about setting down the levains & soakers ready for use tomorrow.  We did have another opportunity to play around with the 'dead dough' & practise our plaiting & baguette moulding, which was nice  =)

It didn't take long to get all the levains & soakers ready, & the snow started to drift down again around 10.00am, getting steadily heavier & heavier.  Several students, & some of the staff, have to drive in quite some way to get to School, & with the snow showing no signs of letting up, we made the decision to head home.  After lunch of course  ;)

I planned to walk home with Clare & Tory, so we stocked up on the lovely Thai butternut soup & tasty breads, then donned our winter clothes, & out into the wilderness we headed!

The Welbeck Estate is a beautiful place, but in the snow it's really rather magical  =)

I may have been just a little bit excited at the prospect of a walk in the snow...  =D

The snow had all but stopped by the time we got back to the apartments, but Alex & Rose were busy building snowmen, so of course we had to stop & help!

By the time we were done, we had ourselves quite a smart looking snowman family  =)

All being well, School will be open as usual tomorrow, so there should actually be some bread to talk about!  Until then, I shall curl up with a cup of tea, & perhaps a salted caramel or two  =)

We were back in the dairy today!  Well, sort of, we were actually in the training room, but we were doing dairy  =)

First up, we had to decant the lovely fresh raw milk from Stitchelton Dairy from the churns into smaller containers, to make it easier to handle.  We were able to taste the milk too, if we wanted.  I did, & it was lovely  =D

Steph & I weren't actually using the raw milk for our first recipe; we had elected to make a goats milk yogurt using a fairly simple recipe designed for smallholders.  We took 3 litres of goats milk & 8 tablespoons of dried milk powder, then heated them slowly, to kill off any bacteria present.  Then the milk was cooled, & a small portion combined with some live yogurt.  We mixed this back into the bulk of the goats milk & popped the bowl into a low oven, where it will stay overnight  =)

We made 7 different batches of yogurt in total, all using slightly different recipes & techniques, to see the different sets & flavours you can get.  Alex & Amy's yogurt was made using quite an old recipe, & that was ready to come home today, but the rest won't be done till tomorrow.

Next up was a yogurt tasting!  We had 7 different types of yogurt to try; 4 cows milk yogurts, a goats milk yogurt, a sheeps milk yogurt, & a soya yogurt.

The range of flavours & textures was crazy; some were very thick & smooth, others were more like a runny cottage cheese!  Of the cows milk yogurts, my favourite was Yeo Vally Natural yogurt, which is the one we used to make our own yogurts.  The goats milk yogurt was really interesting; it had quite a strong goaty flavour, & was slightly savoury, but not unpleasant  =)

The sheeps milk on the other hand, was really rather unpleasant!  It had such a strange texture, & I don't think any of us really knew how to describe the flavour, but it's not one I'll be rushing to try again!

We were planning on separating cream from raw milk, using two different methods; one with a separating machine, the other by hand.  The hand skimming milk needed time to rest, so we measured out 20 litres of the raw milk & left it to sit in a container for most of the day.

The skimming machine was really quite fun; we heated up 5 litres of milk at a time, then poured it slowly into the machine., which uses centrifugal force to separate out the cream from the milk.

Above you can see the raw milk being poured in to the top, then the skimmed milk filters out the spout on the right, while the cream comes out the spout on the left.  Once all 20 litres of milk had been skimmed, we measured out the cream; we were left with just over 2 litres of cream, & rather a lot of skimmed milk!

Skimming by hand was a much slower process; the cream had settled on top of the milk, but in a very thin layer.

As we skimmed the cream from the top, we disturbed the rest, causing the cream to mix through the milk again, so we had to leave it to settle again a number of times.  Even then, we were only able to get 600ml of cream from 20 litres of milk!  Clearly, a skimming machine is the way forward if anyone plans on doing this on a regular basis!

We also had a butter tasting, which wasn't quite as unappealing as it sounds  =)

The butter tasting was done blind, so we were faced with 8 blocks of butter, & had to try to identify which brand they were.

Some, like lard & cookeen, were easy to spot without needing to taste, but the others proved a little trickier.  Eventually though, we had all decided which butter we thought went with which brand, & I'm pleased to say I got them all right!  =D

After that, we had the chance to make butter of our own.  Working in pairs we whipped 800ml of double cream in a mixer, till the butter & buttermilk had separated.  Steph & I got 457g of butter, which we split between the two of us.  I split mine down again, & added 1% salt to one half, leaving the other unsalted.

We had rather a productive day really, & I've come away with quite a haul of goodies  =D

I've got plenty of lovely raw milk for the next few days (honestly, if I could, I would have raw milk ALL THE TIME!  It's full of so much flavour, it really is just scrummy!), some tasty cream, plenty of buttermilk, as well as salted & unsalted butter!  Tomorrow I should hopefully be coming home with plenty of yogurt as well  =D

So now I just need to find a use for all this lovely dairy goodness... I think the cream might just have to go in some salted caramels...  =D

(On a sadder note, my temperature probe still hasn't turned up... )