Thegreenbaker's blog

My old new love KAM, is cursed. Or so it seems.

He committed suicide 2 weeks ago, by walking himself off the kitchen bench whilst mixing dough.

I finally had him replaced and on the second use the height adjustment was somehoiw altered and just scraped the bowl so hard that the protective white covering of the dough hook scraped clean off.

The bowl seems alright. A few scratches, on the bottom, but seemed enough to mix up another batch of dough (as I threw out the now contaminated dough in the bowl) which the paddle attachment.

I think KAM is trying to leave me. :(

Perhaps the bread goddess/god of hearth and home does not want me making bread with a machine? Or perhaps I am just tooo bloody dopey to pay atention to whats going on.

What ever it is, I wont be making bread by mixer for quite a while again.

GAH!

TGB

I have had fun the last two days :)

I like not having to make mess or worry about kneading for 10 mins. Thats KAM's job :)

I made some oat bread and a lovely fruit loaf

A crumb shot.

The recipe for the fruit loaf is over at my new food blog but it is explained in simpler terms or more detailed depends on who you are. I mixed it in my mixer for 4 mins....gave my mixer a rest as the instructions said "mix bread for 2 mins then another 2 mins and it should be ready" I say they are wrong and so mix for a couple of mins and give it a rest. I wanted to have good gluten development, and it surely did that :) The crumb is so soft :)

I am having an affair. I cannot stop thinking aboput him and the possibilities! Oh the possibilities! 

His name is Kam
Thats right. Kam.  My Kitchenaid Artisan Mixer!
*sighs happily*

I made bread, rolls and cinnamon rolls yesterday with little to no mess.
My kitchen after making all that, would normally be coated in cement like dough and flour with bowls everywhere.
(I knead on the benches which takes ages to clean/disinfect with natural stuff before hand and clean the dough off afterwards)

I have no pictures, but I am making some oat bread today as well as looking at making some breakfast rolls.
I was naughty and ate half a cinnamon roll for breakfast - I ate two last night!(they are small anyway, but I hate eating sweet stuff for breakfast....lets just kick out pancreas into shock for the day shall we?) I just have no will power when it comes to cinnamon rolls. :)
SO while eating it and feeling guilty, it dawned on me that I should make a healthy alternative. I had a vision of oat loaf dough dotted with presoaked currants and apricots all soft and gooey, Medjool date pieces also soft and succulent, grated apple to sweeten and perhaps cinnamon or mixed spice or even cardamon. Then filled with St Dalfour Apricot Jam and rolled up. I may even add some ground nuts to it somewhere (should avoid latge nut pieces for Ellas sake)

That to me sounds like a delicious, healthy alternatative to uber sweet and decadent cinnamon rolls!

Then I also am thinking of an oat bread dough, made into plain swirl rolls with different fillings such as St Dalfour Jams, stewed fruit, date puree, a fruit and nut mixture.  I suppose I should just experiment. Make a double batch of Oat bread dough, and halve it. Make fruit rolls with Jam filling, and the rest as plain scrolls with jam, fruit puree and or fruit and nut fillings.

Oh the things Kam and I can do together!

Posts and pics to come.

TGB 

Hubby and I discussed the pros and cons of a dough mixer.

The pros won and I now own a kitchen aid artisan miser! We took a 5 year warranty out on it just in case, so now, I am going to go mad this week playing with it!

YAY!

Yesterday, we were heading out for the day and we were also out of bread. I decided to throw together some dough and stick it in the fridge until today.

So, I put 4 cuops of sifted wholewheat (14%protein) and about 2cups of water and 1/2 cup milk (its thirsty flour) added some oil and salt also. I only put 1 teaspoon of yeast and everything was quite cool. I then let it sit for 20 mins to align the gluten while I got ready, then kneaded it for about 2 mins,,,,,not even that really....and threw it in the fridge.

We came home and I decided to make pizza with it, but it didnt rise at all. So I took it out folded it while cold and put it in a warm oven for about 5 mins hoping to warm it up and make it DO SOMETHING. Then decided it wasnt worth the effort (its was 9:30pm) so in the fridge it went, and this morning it is still quiet and flat.

I am going to do two things. Take a hunk, shape it and bake it, take the rest and use it as a preferment and add it to some more flour. Lets see what happens.

I donbt know what I am doing at the moment, but the last 3 batches of bread I have made have sucked.

Seriously sucked.

Undercooked, no oven spring, dense, the only thing I can say is that they were tasty enough.

I tried the 5 mins a day master recipe and I didnt like it. I used whole wheat and that may have been the problem but I found it waaaaaaaaaay toooooo salty for my linking.

I used 1/3 of that to make a loaf and the oven spring was really nice so was the crumb, but I just didnt like the taste. I use the rest as a preferment and added it to approximately an equal weight of flour. I didnt add any more yeast or salt and it turned out nicely. By nicely I say It tasted much better, but the crumb was still a bit moist yet the outside was going to charr if I left it in the oven.

Then yesterday I made my usual oat bread.....and it was terrible.

UNDERCOOKED. My hubby who  a. has a cold and cant taste anything and b. really, hasnt got a highly developed pallette for bread or food said the bread was fine and I even after tasting it before him and deciding it was cooked just moist from the oats....believed him and ate a piece..toasted....nope. TERRIBLE. UNDERCOOKED> It also was almost charred.

I had the oven set to 240 degrees celcius for 10 mins then turned it down to 190-210 for the remainder of the cooking time. It still didnt DO much at all.

I am not happy. What a waste offlour and money.

Thwe only thing I have been doing differently is not sifting the flour and not adding a bit of unbleached strong while flour. Its cheaper to buy organic WW strong bread flour than it is to buy Organic strong white/unbleached bread flour. I also began sifting my wholewheat flour as I suspected a bug infestation, and my bread which was already suprising me with its results, improved immensely. (No bugs though) So I kept sifting. Then a few days ago I decided to try not sifting again because I really DO LOVE the flavour of wholewheat bread (and not ading that 1/2 cup of white flour) and the bits that were cooked well were soooo delicious, the rest was doughy half cooked crud. *sigh* The thing is, I even had window pane! Window pane after autolyse and kneading my whole wheat OAT bread! yet it still didnt do anything :( Perhaps I over proofed yesterdays loaf. It collapsed after I slashed it.

Even my pancakes this morning were undercooked.  I used a mix of white SR flour and my WW bread flour and they were just gloopy on the inside! I wonder if it has anything to do with the flour. :S

I am going to try one more time today. I will go back to my treacle loaf recipe and follow it step by step and see what happens.

Fingers crossed because I am missing my new standard of bread. 

I am going to go bonkers if I cant eat yummy bread again!  :( 

I went on a whim googling for artisan bread classes seeing as there doesnt seem to be anything like KA here, that I have discovered yet.

My first stop...and this is WHERE I stopped because it just blew me out of the water!

The Artisan Bread School. *cries*

I found this course http://www.artisan-bread-school.com/location.htm

I want so bad to do it, but the money and time away from home is just too much to ask for.

bugger!

I am extatic with how they turned out :) This is the best crumb I have ever had when making rustic breads :)

*does big happy dance*

I am finally getting the hang of shapping bagguettes also. If only my oven shelf and bakers stone were big enough for them! I have 2 "S" shapes loaves as one stuck to the bakingtray as I moved it to the baking stone (bugger!) and one was too long for the stone so I had to shove in the end hanging off! But, all in all, a success, and I think I will be making higher hydration loaves from now on! (Well as high as my little kneading hands can handle ;) )

thegreenbaker

I have yet to try it again, but it was soooooooo delicious :) I love my grains!

It got a little mangled as I didnt line the tin and it stuck. :S But, How delicious.

I have always wondered what I would do to make a cake minus the raising agents! Some one posted I think on here their version, it was I think Nectarine? I may be delusional so who knows.

I found the recipe, and made the cake and it is almost gone (and it isnt even 24 hours old!

The original recipe can be found here

I made a few changes to it.

In large bowl, combine 1 cup flour, sugar, undissolved yeast, and salt. Heat water, milk, and oil until very warm (120o to 130oF).

Gradually add to flour mixture. Beat 2 minutes at medium peed with an electric mixer. Scrape the bowl occasionally.

Add the eggs and 1/2 cup of flour. Beat for 2 mins at high speed (I had to lower my speed as the gluten was getting worked and the flour was winding up my beaters!)

Stir in the remaining flour to make a stiff batter. I had to add en extra 1/4 cup to do so.

Stir in the chopped up apple pieces.

Grease and line a cake pan, arrange the apple slices in bottom and sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon. Pour in the batter and spread it out evenly.

Leave it to rise in a warm place for 1 hour...ot until it doubles in size.

Above the batter has just been poured into the pan

Here, ready to bake.


You might like to do as the recipe suggests with the apple slices and place then on the top of the cake instead. I found the cake bottom burned exposed in the oven, but I liked how the apples embedded themselves in the cake on the bottom (which became the top)

So you could do it my way and cover the cake with parchment thats been well greased to stop it from burning.

Place into a preheated oven at 190 degrees oven for 45 mins until it is cooked in the middle. Test as per usual cake testing. I turned the oven down for the last 15-20 mins to 180 degrees celcius as it was burning.

remove and cool. Its lovely warm, but Delicious cool! With butter, or even golden syrup and cream!

YUM YUUUUM!