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