Bread ****

[Hanglow]

Pizza looks fantastic - is that an outside pizza oven?

Yes, it's called the Maximus. Got it a few years ago, now the likes of Ooni have quite a range that are a bit cheaper. Well worth having one imo

 

[Janulka098]

What a great name for pizza oven. Other half made one of the youtube one of those gym ball mould ones. Best DIY projects he has done!

 

[Edison]

Would love to build a brick pizza oven, looks fantastic!

 

[AdeDunn]

We cleaned out the 21 year old (possibly older) bread machine yesterday, and put a loaf on... Takes nearly 3 hours... lol Got another on now. Cheating, sure, but whatever, it tastes good. Going to buy a more modern machine this week.





Oh yeah, and a 15k sack of strong white flour, and another 60 litre blue food barrel for it to go on (making 3 in total....).

 

[AdeDunn]

The new machine came yesterday.


Baked last night using standard setting, 2lb loaf, medium crust setting. Took 3 hours.


Baked just now using fastbake 2 setting, 2lb loaf, medium crust setting. Took 58 minutes but looked a bit pale, so we gave it 5 more minutes. We'll use the dark crust setting next time like the instructions advise.

 

[Edison]

Another batch of sourdough starter discard bagels. This time added 2tbsp bakind soda to 1.5l water for the simmer, hence the deep colour from just 20mins bake at 200c. Can't wait for them to cool and take a taste!

 

[Drunkula]

added 2tbsp bakind soda

Rah! You can use washing soda crystals, too. I know - it just seems weird but it's along the evolutionary chain from bicarb and more pH-ey, which is a term now.

 

[Edison]

@Drunkula Haha, now this sounds like a fun (read ‘dangerous’) experiment.

Apparently “Baking soda’s chemical makeup is NaHCO3 (1 sodium, 1 hydrogen, 1 carbon, and 3 oxygen molecules). Washing soda’s chemical makeup is Na2CO3 (2 sodium, 1 carbon, and 3 oxygen molecules). When baking soda is heated up to high temperatures, it breaks down to become washing soda, water steam, and carbon dioxide.

”The process is really simple. Just heat your oven to 400 F (or 200 C), sprinkle some baking soda on a shallow pan, and bake it for about half hour, until it changes composition. You should also stir it up occasionally, just so that it bakes more evenly.”

It certainly looks more pH-ey (definitely the correct term) at 11 so I suspect I will need less of it!

<edit> It seems the advice is to rinse the boiled bagels in clean water before baking, less chance of consuming something caustic!

Apparently bagels are usually steamed/boiled before baking, pretzels are cold soaked in lye, rinsed and baked. Might have to do a split batch next time!

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

Here’s one of my sourdough boules
OK - got ale and bread... now I need to work out how to make cheese

 

[RichardM]

Here’s one of my sourdough boules
OK - got ale and bread... now I need to work out how to make cheese

That looks good. Soft cheeses are easy to make, there is plenty of information in the interweb, or books if you prefer.
When you have got the cheese sorted you can then move on to sausages, bacon and pork pies.

 

[QED]

#sourdough

 

[Alastair70]

After many disasters and some OK efforts, finally pulled off a worthy sourdough. Added a couple of laminations into the dough prep and its seemed to pay off. Have another one on the go for tomorrow to see if I can reproduce the loaf.

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

Nice ear there... did you do it in a Dutch oven?

 

[Alastair70]

Nice ear there... did you do it in a Dutch oven?

Yes, first time in a Dutch oven. Procook Cast Iron 4.7L, bought a couple of weeks ago for £60.
Impressed with the quality given its 1/4 the price of Le Creuset!

 

[Griffster77]

This place feels like my spiritual home. One thing lockdown has done for me is getting my baking mojo going again!

Just need to get my sourdough starter going again...

Erm, why can't I attach a pic? It seems to ask for a URL rather than just attaching from my computer.

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

click on the image insert - centre of this piccy - then drag/drop :-)

 

[Griffster77]

But I'm typing on my phone and want to use a pic on my phone.

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

Seems to work alright for me (iPhone)

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

View attachment 32245
Seems to work alright for me (iPhone)

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]