Monday 18 March 2013

Wonderful Sourdough

More Natural Fermentation

Bread Matters Sourdough Special course 2nd and 3rd March 2013


The wonders of natural fermentation were revealed. From country bread made with some Scottish flour to a chickpea and fennel sourdough, each bread demonstrated an aspect of the simplicity and beauty of baking real bread with just flour, water and a bit of salt.


                      


   
       
  






Sunday 17 March 2013

March 2013

Fermenting Stuff

We have been fermenting a lot of grains, and good ideas, at Macbiehill Farmhouse. A four-day Baking for Community course ended yesterday, with (sourdough) cultures being exchanged between Scotland, England, Bulgaria, Brazil and Ireland.

We adopted some Kefir 'grains', which are fermenting whole organic milk whilst multiplying their complex mix of bacteria and yeasts merrily in the kitchen. The  resulting yoghurty drink - blended with a syrup of summer berries and served chilled - has been a huge hit. Influenced by nutritionist Colette McMahon, with her mantras of 'get the oils right' and 'soak the grains first' I've also added 'energy balls' to the Bread Matters coffee breaks. As soon as my new moulds arrive I will dignify these with the title 'energy bars' but for now it's just balls.

Here is the recipe.
You don't need to weigh anything. Use any measure for the 'scoop' - tablespoon, jug, bucket - according to how many people you're feeding, in these ratios:
Soak two scoops of dried apricots with one scoop of crystallised ginger and one scoop of sunflower seeds in pure orange juice, overnight.
Drain off any excess liquid that hasn't been absorbed.
Add one scoop of cashew nuts.
Whizz the mixture in a blender until it is only slightly lumpy.
Shape it into small balls and roll them in dried coconut to coat them.
If the mixture is too soft to shape, chill it in the fridge first and/or add more nuts or seeds.
Variations: Almost any dried fruits, seeds and nuts, coated in chocolate.

It is still Lent, of course, so the Lenten Greens recipe posted this time last year is back in fashion; and we've eaten our first green salads of Japanese broccoli, wild rocket, a volunteer lettuce, Mizuna and Mibuna from the polytunnel. 

The green tomatoes from last year's crop have nearly all been eaten, in the form of a variation on 'zucchini' loaves (see post February 2013)  and this green tomato chutney we made last autumn.






Andrew has been slowly-fermenting and baking with Mulika wheat, grown in East Lothian.
If you haven't read Scotland: The Bread yet, here's a loaf, and a link, for you.






Monday 11 February 2013


Bread Matters’ Zucchini Loaf



This recipe was devised by Andrew to make something delicious from the glut of courgettes we often have in the summer. Each loaf (we have decided not to call it ‘bread’ as it is raised with baking powder and is really a cake) takes only 150g of courgette; so it isn’t a solution to all the excess produce - or a way of sneaking courgette into the diet of resistant family members. 

Most vegetable gardeners have a story about over-production. My favourite comes from a baking friend Angus who told us that, in the part of rural Canada he comes from, the only time his neighbours ever lock their cars is during the zuchini glut. They never worry that anyone will steal belongings from their parked car or pickup, but they won’t run the risk of finding a generous truck-load of courgettes stowed in it when they return. 
  
Last year we produced even more green tomatoes than even I can serve fried in breadcrumbs, so we substituted them, very successfully, for the zuchini. Whichever moist green vegetable you choose, the cake will be delicious on its own, good with cheese and freeze well. 

Here’s the recipe, in the usual industrial quantities: 

Zucchini Loaf

Ingredients grams grams
Egg 800 400
Olive Oil 400 200
Raw Cane Sugar 800 400
Courgette (grated) 1200          600
Flour (Light Rye) 1200 600
Baking Powder 45 25
Cardamom (ground) 90 45
Salt 20 10
Raisins 500 250
Walnuts 500 250

Total weight 5555 2780

Yield  @ 660g 8 4


Method

Beat the egg and sugar together until slightly fluffy. Then drizzle in the oil allowing the mixture to absorb some before adding more. The mix will be fairly liquid but should be smooth and a little aerated.  Add the grated courgette and stir briefly.  Sift together the dry ingredients and add them to the mix.  Finally, add the raisins and walnuts and mix until everything is well-distributed.   

Deposit into greased and floured baking tins (or non-stick ones). The mix should come between half way and two-thirds of the way up the sides of the tin. Put immediately into an oven pre-heated to about 190 °C/375°F. Baking will take about 30 minutes. If the top is taking too much colour before the middle of the loaf is done (as tested with a skewer), cover it with a sheet of silicone paper or similar.

Notes:

The recipe includes salt because, unlike most baking fats (butter, margarine etc) oil doesn’t come with added salt. You can, of course, leave it out but you may feel that the flavour of the finished loaf ‘lacks something’.

660 g fits into the same size tin as we use for Borodinsky bread, which is equivalent to a fairly large ‘one pound’ bread tin. You will need to adjust the quantity per loaf if using different sized tins.

That Chocolate Beetroot Cake


Chocolate Beetroot Cake 

We had eleven talented and enthusiastic bakers here last week on the Bread Matters Baking for a Living Course. Concentrating hard, producing fantastic breads and planning their diverse business ventures works up an appetite and we got through quite a lot of chocolate cake in the coffee breaks. Several people asked for this recipe. Perhaps versions of it will make an appearance one day on their menus in England, Canada, Spain, Cyprus and the Isle of Lewis. 

I've used the very last of our beetroots from the smallholding and the last of the heat from the Primus electric stone-lined oven to bake another batch of four cakes. Here's the recipe:



The original version of this comes from Annette GibbonsHome Grown in Cumbria (Zymurgy publishing 2005), a guide to some of the best growers and producers in Cumbria, along with recipes that do their produce justice.  Annette describes herself as a ‘professional cook, not a chef’ and health is a consideration in her recipes. 

There are three other recipes in this book that I can vouch for; herb-filled carrot roulade, baked trout, and hazelnut meringues with berry cream. I haven’t used them much, but Annette has prepared them for celebratory meals, including at least one Royal visit and, at less than three weeks’ notice, for our wedding in 2008. 

Predictably, I’ve adapted this recipe to use organic olive oil rather than sunflower oil, and a mixture of light rye flour and ground almonds to replace the self-raising flour. 

Ingredients

65g cocoa powder
275g half-and-half light rye flour and ground almonds, with a pinch of salt 
and 10g baking powder
220g caster sugar

300ml            olive oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 medium sized eggs, beaten
250g  cooked beetroot, grated

Method

Sift the cocoa powder, flour, salt, baking powder, ground almonds and sugar together.

Whisk the olive oil, vanilla essence and eggs together until they thicken. It may take five minutes or more of whisking to emulsify and begin to look like mayonnaise. 

Add the beetroot and mix well with the dry ingredients. It will turn a vivid purple colour. 

Pour into two prepared 7” sandwich tins or one deep tin. 

Bake in a preheated oven at 190C (gas mark 5 or 375 F). 
Sandwich cakes will take about 35 minutes and deeper cakes longer. 

Chocolate Ganache

150g dark chocolate and 
150ml double cream

Double these quantities if you want to cover the top as well as filling the cake. 
Use the best ingredients you can get hold of. Montezuma’s 73% cocoa dark couverture is my favourite chocolate for baking.  

Method

Warm the cream in a saucepan until it is almost boiling. Remove from the heat and add the chocolate, stirring it while it melts. Whisk the mixture until it becomes glossy. (A mixer will do this in a minute or two.) Use the ganache to sandwich the two cakes and (if you wish) to cover the top. 

For a special occasion, I sometimes decorate this cake with little beetroots, made from marzipan and coloured with the beetroot juice. Now that I’ve perfected our slow-dried beetroot ‘crisps’, some of which resemble rose petals, I might even use those.