Soda bread - milling around

Dish of the day on Sunday featured Irish Soda Bread with St Maure de Touraine goat cheese and Forme d'Ambert blue cows-milk cheese. In photographing the various flours I used, I discovered I had flour from conventional mills, from a windmill, from a watermill and from an artisanal combimoulin.

Soda bread and cheese - a light lunch

To make the soda bread my starting ingredients were lait ribot, a Breton fermented buttermilk, and a coarse stoneground wholemeal flour from Mount Pleasant Windmill of Kirton-in-Lindsey, Lincolnshire, "specially milled for soda bread". The flour was somewhat past its sell-by date, and featured the odd bit of stalk as well as grain, but it was still perfectly OK. I mixed it half and half with spelt flour, having learned from my long-ago efforts with wholemeal bread which could have been used to build walls.

Ingredients

The French equivalent of wholemeal flour bears the code T150, for farine de blé complète.  We have T150 flour from Le Moulin Boutard, the last watermill operating today in Bourgueil.

It is increasingly common to find artisanal flour at farm shops, farmers' markets and producer co-operatives like the Biocoops, and TerreyFruits in Descartes. In seeking to diversify, cereal farmers such as the DuBois family at La Ratinière, Civray sur Esves, are investing in a compact milling setup to produce their own flour. This is even more marketable if they have AB (organic) status.

Fresh flour stone ground on the farm

A "combimoulin" has a set of millstones connected to a flour grader. The model on the flour packet above is "The Villandry". The whole operation is so compact that the producer can take a complete working demonstration of their products to agricultural fairs, farm open days etc. We saw this one in action at the environment fair in Le Blanc this summer.

Back to the soda bread - did you know that it's not of Irish origin at all, but was first baked by Native Americans using wood ash as a source of potassium carbonate? It's in Wikipedia so it must be true.

The recipe is based on that in "Best Ever Baking" by Carole Clements. In this recipe, fermented buttermilk provides the acid that reacts with baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) to generate carbon dioxide bubbles that make the bread rise. The dough is kneaded before going into the oven. You're often told not to knead soda bread, as it knocks the bubbles out of it. This bread rose nicely and was still moist on the third day - all too often, soda bread resembles a sanding block after a day.

Spelt flour, if you can get it, helps any bread to rise well. If you can't, use ordinary plain flour. For a lighter texture, increase the proportion of spelt flour to wholemeal.

Ingredients

8 oz/220gm spelt flour (or plain flour)
8 oz/220gm coarsely ground wholemeal flour
1½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
½ tsp salt
1 oz /30gm butter or margarine, melted, at room temperature
10 fl oz/300ml buttermilk, or lait ribot (Breton: laezh-ribod), or tykmaelk (Danish) or runny yoghurt
1 tbsp plain flour, for dusting

Method

Oven temperature 200°C/400°F/Gas Mark 6
Lightly grease a baking tray.
Stir together the flours, soda and salt. Make a well in the centre and pour in the butter and buttermilk. Using a fork, gradually mix in the flour, working outwards from the centre of the bowl until all the flour is incorporated into a fairly soft dough.
Flour a work surface and your hands. Form the mixture into a ball and place it on the work surface. Knead the dough for three minutes, flouring the surface again if the dough sticks. Form the dough into a flattened ball and place it on the tray. Using a sharp knife, cut a cross in the top of the ball to divide it into four portions. Dust with a little more flour.

Bake towards the top of the oven for 40 - 50 minutes, until brown. Check that the loaf is done by taking it out of the oven and rapping it underneath with your knuckles. If it sounds hollow, it's done.

Well risen

Take a chunk

What's next, I wonder?

Have a good Christmas!

Just loafing around... 'tis the weather!

Yesterday Ken blogged about making bread...
this is based round an expanded comment I left on his blog.
Nowadays our "machine a pain" has become just a glorified dough maker.
Mainly because I hate the hole in the bottom!!
What follows are a few of my observations...

The Bread Machine makes better dough than I do by hand...
it has a load more patience for a start...
and the temperature is probably more constant...
but I still knock back after it comes out...
seems to give that bit extra to the texture...
and NO HOLES!

I try and experiment with the breads I make...
to ring the changes, mainly...
but also to try and make breads to go with different meals...
or to be had with jam, marmalade or peanut butter and redcurrant jelly!!

I use different blends of flour... but almost always include 100 to 150g spelt [épeutre] as it gives a better rise. And the base is usually one of the "off the shelf" strong flours...
Monday tends to be a fairly regular bread-bake day... no bakery!
Yesterday I mixed
175g Pain de Campagne flour,
150g of Epeutre mix,
and made it up to
450g with a local farmers multi-grain mix...
I then added 50g extra grains...
mainly linseed.

These are the ingredients mentioned above...

Lidl's Ciabatta mix is perfect for pizzas.
The Bread Machine recipe book says use Olive Oil for the Ciabatta, Focaccia and Pizza doughs...
and Butter for almost all the others...
so I started substituting Groundnut or Sunflower oil for the butter...
but now use Vigean's Fruity & Nuts... the 30:70 mix of Walnut and 1st press Colza [rapeseed] oils...
it does give a moister, longer lasting loaf.
 
Using a pre-mixed packet....
such as Lidl's Ciabatta mix...
for one of the ingredients, means that you need to cut back on the salt...
I add half a teaspoon now when using it as part of one of my "blends"!

Pauline complains about the number of different flours and grains that I have on the shelves because they take up so much room [but she loves the bread!]

There are a lot of mini-moulins in Centre...
you can get their flours at the farmers markets...
and some of the weekly ones...
you just need to keep your eyes open....
Susan commented, after me, on Ken's entry that Angelique has stopped doing markets...
but you can still order stuff from her at her home...
[thank goodness... I've not seen those grain mixes that she does anywhere else]

When you get to the bake stage...
my tip to pass on is get the oven up to 250 Centigrade...
put the loaf in...
cancel the oven and reset for 200C...
bake for normal time...
this is meant to replicate a traditional bread oven...
some small artisanal bakeries apparently use this method regularly.

And this is the loaf that came out of the oven!

Discovered treasures...

We have a barn full of boxes....
And amongst those boxes are ones containing beers....

I was searching for the box K39 containing the Moulinex Juicer for Susan and found a box with beers that had remained packed since leaving our cellar in Leeds.
I never found K39... it didn't exist!!
But it turned out that the juicer was in box K38... which wasn't on the list. They were amongst the last boxes to be packed and Pauline, who was attempting to supervise the contents of the boxes and record them.... was getting very frazzled!!

However, back to the beers discovered....
we decided to rescue a couple tonight.
Rescue?...
We lost a few bottles in the big freeze this February...
fortunately nothing that cannot be replaced...
but still a sticky waste!

So our evening meal was cream of pumpkin, carrot and tomato soup, bread, cheeses and beer.
Luverly!

The ones we chose were from Briscoe's Brewery in Otley, West Yorkshire.
Dr. Paul Briscoe started brewing commercially in 1998 having been made redundant... he had been brewing successfully on a non-commercial basis for years... making special beers for friends and colleagues... as well as 'special' bottled runs for the Fell Runners that Paul competes against... yes, he's a brewer with the runs!
The 'brewery' in his cellar was expanded... by using a garden shed for the messy first stages of the process, and then piping the wort down into the cellar for the fermentation and racking of the final result.
He has three 'core' brews, available in local pubs and at the Otley Beer Festival...

3 Peaks Ale (4.5% ABV) a strong pale premium bitter;
Chevin Chaser (4.3% ABV) a refreshing pale-coloured all malt bitter with a distinct hop finish.; 
Chevin Light (3.8% ABV) a classic "Yorkshire-styled" session bitter;

....all very tasty.

The beers we had tonight are:
Puddled & Barmy Ale (5.8% ABV) a sweetish, smooth dark old ale. [1998]

The crown cork on the bottle had rusted somewhat... and the beer poured into the jug on the flat side of petillant... so I served it in small wine glasses.... it was very nice despite being almost flat... answering to the above description perfectly... not bad for a bottle of beer that was 14 years old. It was dry enough not to be too slippery! The yeast was 'nailed' to the bottom of the bottle.

this was followed by:
Shane’s Shamrock Stout (4.5% ABV) a slightly less dry Irish-style stout with a hint of chocolate.[1999 - a special bottling for our wedding!!]

This bottle was in much better condition... and as you can see from the photograph had a good head... much dryer than the Puddled & Barmy. There is a hint of choclate... 
hold on I'll just try another sip... 
yes, because of the dryness, it does come across as an 80% cocoa mass bar. 
[Well, if wine writers want to go all descriptive so can I...] 
Seriously, I am drinking it as I type, and the flavour is of a very dry chocolate...  
the beer is much dryer than Guinness.
Pauline commented that we should have drunk it on our aniversary... 

oh well....  
only 40 days late... 
so I'll raise a glass to the Keighley Beer Festival where we met over the Foreign Beers counter. 
And now go and refill it!!
Why had these beers kept? The secret is in the bottle... both brews were on the yeast. Had the crown cork not rusted on the first bottle, it would have had a full head... not a vinho verde bubbliness.

The cheeses were Salers, Forme d'Ambert [blue] and two St.Maure Chevre logs... cheese goes very well with dark dry beers, but the Forme d'Ambert went with sables anglais... McVities Digestives.

There's a bit more about Paul's brewery here... it is somewhat out of date... the Bowling Green venture collapsed when Paul broke an arm fell running and couldn't brew... then the pub owner decided to retire and sold the pub to Weatherspoons... sadly, it is not what it was!! 

Bread machine as dough maker

I've mentioned in this blog and in comments on other blogs about using our Panic-sonic Breadmaker as a dough producer. It means that Pauline and I can have decent, "tartine"able bread without the hole up the middle [or the massive holes in our local boulangerie loaves!]

Given the recent weather, it also means that we can make bread when it isn't worth driving into town.

Two days ago, for the first time in about three years I made Tomato and Olive Focaccia... loosly based round the recipe in the machine's handbook.

Resting in my square cake tin... makes pavés

NOTE: With the Panasonic you put the dry in first, followed by the liquid... the opposite way round to most breadmakers!!

Ingredients [in order after the 1.5 teaspoons of yeast - about half a 7gm packet]:

300gms of LIDLs Ciabatta loaf mix [this has yeast and salt in it... so cut back on the salt!]
150gms of Strong White [or Pain Maison] flour
180mls of passata [I used homemade Black Krim passata]
70mls of water
Tablespoon [15mls] of Olive Oil

To be added halfway through: [at around the 25 minute mark... set a timer.]
50gms dried Cherry tomatoes... roughly chopped.
20gms dried Sweet Peppers... as for tomatoes
30gms chopped Green olives
20gms chopped Black olives - the Kalamata ones are best

For the Panasonic use the 45min Pizza dough setting... it works perfectly.
Just before the buzzer goes, put the oven on at 30C if you can... if not find a warm space [cardboard box upside-down at the back of the refridgerator works.] We use the microwave combi oven to bake in and the main oven to prove in.
Take dough out of the machine, rescue that damn paddle, and knock dough back a little.
Form loaf to shape, or put into mould. This is a slightly moister mix than normal so it will not hold a shape... push holes in it with your fingers.... be brutal, they mend!! The holes that is!]
It takes about 45 minutes to double in size... get oven going at 240C at about 40 minutes proving time [having checked that the rise is going OK.]
When oven is up to temperature put the loaf in and immediately CANCEL** the oven temperature setting. Re-set the oven to 200C and let bread bake for about 40 to 45 mins... knock it out of mould, if using one, at about 35 to 40 mins and put it back in for the last five minutes... this gives a nicer crust on the bottom.

End crust off for tasting!

A close up of the cut face with the pepper, tomato and olives showing.
If you want larger bits than this add them later... or even fold in when knocking back.

 Allow to cool and serve with cheese, cold meats, soups, etc.

And here's one I made earlier...

This is a 300gm Pain de Campagne, 100 gm Spelt [epeautre] and 50gm Rye [seigle] loaf with 50gms added grains.
Two tablespoons of Vigean's Fruitee & Noix oil and 250ml of water completed the mix.
Same Pizza dough setting, 70 mins proving and 50 mins baking.

**This emulates a traditional bread oven apparently.... it certainly gives a better loaf I think.