Friday, April 12, 2013

Sourdough Spelt Baguettes


Crispy crust, chewy sourdough middle, delicious! (Though I say so myself).

Ingredients:

7g salt
125g strong white bread flour
250g spelt flour
250g sourdough starter
180-220ml water
Olive oil, for kneading

1. Mix salt, flours and starter together in a large bowl.
2. Slowly add water - starting with 180ml, and gradually kneading in additional water until you have a slack dough - it will be quite sticky.
3. Turn dough out onto an oiled surface (do not add extra flour, it will make the dough act most peculiarly) or into the oiled bowl of a freestanding mixer.
4. Knead the dough for 5-10 minutes until it is smooth and elastic.
5. Cover the dough and leave in a warm place to prove for 5 to 6 hours, until the dough is doubled in size.
6. Shape the loaves - on an oiled surface divide the dough into 3 parts. Each should weigh about 275g (more important than the exact weight is similar size). Roll the dough gently into sausage shapes.
7. Transfer the loaves carefully to a floured, linen, tea-towel or baker's couche, pleating the cloth to stop the baguettes touching.
8. Leave the loaves to prove for 12-18 hour. A longer, slower rise (ie in a cooler place) will give a more sour dough. Beware of leaving the loaves too long at a warmer temperature as they may rise well and then collapse on themselves.
9. Preheat oven to 190C. Spray the inside and bottom of the oven with water to generate steam.
10. Transfer the loaves to baking sheets lined by non-stick baking paper. Apply more water around the loaves (but not touching the loaves) to generate further steam.
11. Bake the loaves for 15-25 minutes until the bases sound hollow when tapped.

Serving suggestion: Alongside some rich tomato and chorizo tapas (recipe to follow), or just slathered with creamy British butter.


Edited to add: Never done this before, but I am entering this in: Bake Your Own Bread
And: YeastSpotting
(I hope I did that right!)

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

When life gives you guavas...

make guava sorbet!

I inherited an old tin of guava halves. Feeling the need for sweet, fruity goodness, my mind turned to sorbet. Unfortunately, however, Google was less than forthcoming on a recipe for guava sorbet involving the tinned kind. Seeing as I have never even seen a fresh guava, let alone tasted on, fresh guava sorbet was not going to be an option (quite aside from the fact that the tinned guavas were already staring at me)


So, as per usual This Is Not My Home protocol, I maded it up.

Ingredients:

1 tin guava halves (the 400g+ size tin - guava "shells" are probably better as they are seedless, but that's not what I had)
125ml water
62.5g granulated sugar (sorry if your scales can't weigh to 0.5 of a gram, round in whichever direction pleases you)

1. Put guava halves into a food processor (Magimix) and puree into oblivion. Set aside
2. Put sugar and water into a small but substantial pan. Bring to the boil, stiring constantly until the sugar has dissolved, then stop. Boil the sugar syrup for 5 minutes - do not leave it unsupervised and keep pets and children away. Leave the syrup to cool.
3. Sieve the pips out of the guava puree - really push it through the sieve with a wooden spoon or silicone spatula. You want as much puree as you can without actually grating the seeds through.
4. Mix the puree with the cooled sugar syrup.
5. Pour the guava puree into an ice-cream maker and churn until softly frozen.
6. Turn the sorbet out into a freezer-suitable container and freeze until properly frozen/required.



(In a correction to a previous statement, this is in fact the 100th post - the one before took into account unpublished posts - I read the wrong number!)