Reciplace

Merry Christmas!!!

I haven't done much in the way of blogging this month.  Work has been brutally busy, and is only getting busier.  It's now Christmas Eve, and I haven't even done any Christmas shopping!  I'm at work now, hoping to buy a few online presents that just require printing off, before I leave at lunchtime.  Shameful.

I'm in London for Christmas this year.  It should be a good feast.  I'm planning a lovely breakfast complete with bucks fizz, fruit salad, ham and mustard, and rye bread.

Lunch is a grazy-affair of olives, cheese, biscuits and balsamic onions.

Dinner is root veg and goats cheese salad, roast potatoes, honey roasted carrots, and pork loin stuffed with apricot and pine nuts. With a lovely bakewell tart sent to me from my Veggie Bowls playing friend. Yum!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

Good Food Channel Goes All Masterchef

My friend Nora from work represented us (Good Food Channel) at the BBC Good Food show in November at the Masterchef challenge. 

Of course, she did brilliantly.  Read all about it here: http://uktv.co.uk/food/blogpost/aid/632348

Where to buy fresh yeast in London (Scandi Kitchen)

 

I have a lot of people coming to my blog searching for, "where can I buy fresh yeast in London?".   Although I talk about fresh yeast quite a bit on this blog, I may have never actually said where I buy it. 

I've heard rumours that you can ask for free fresh yeast at the bakeries of large Tesco and Sainsbury's.  Frankly, I'd be surprised if anyone working at these "bakeries" even knows what fresh yeast is, seeing as everything they sell has been intensively manufactured off site and part baked before they even get it. 

I think that any real bakery worth their salt will sell fresh yeast if you ask them nicely.  If they don't have it, it might be a sign that they too are having their bread sent in from elsewhere.  Down in my part of London, you can find fresh yeast in Luca's Bakery, and the East Dulwich Deli, both on Lordship Lane in Dulwich.

But the place I always buy my fresh yeast from is The Scandinavian Kitchen on Great Titchfield Street, London.  It's conveniently located 3 minutes away from my office, and on the way to my gym.  There's no having to politely ask anyone if you could inconvenience them for a block of yeast - they proudly sell it in the fridge near the counter.  And for the bargain-rific price of 45p.  

They also sell loads of lovely food things, and serve amazing open faced sandwiches on rye bread for lunch.  Yum!

Can I eat dried yeast straight out of the jar?

To the person who came to my blog by searching for "Can I eat dried yeast straight out of the jar?" Um.... no. Yuck.

BBC Good Food Masterchef Live at Kensington Olympia

Hot diggidy!  Another big huge food exhibition.  And once again I blagged free tickets from work to go!  (Thanks, Nora!) 

This time it was the BBC Good Food Masterchef Live show at Kensington Olympia in London.  I couldn't believe my eyes when we walked through the entrance - that place is enormous! We didn't even know where to begin!  (Certainly not at the coat-check with the 20 minute long queue!)  There were rows upon rows of booths from various producers and food companies.  Michelin starred restaurants offering samples of their food.  Theatres, masterclasses, tastings, and a Japanese food pavilion.  (Heaven!)  

Me being a Canadian girl and all, I was a little overwhelmed with the ridiculous crowds.  It was a bit like being on the Victoria Line during rush hour, but with no one knowing where they're going.  Hoards of middle-class foodies trying to keep hold of their English civility while being crushed in a crowd, grabbing samples of organic Wiltshire smoked cheese and brightly decorated cupcakes.  There wasn't enough room to bring a cat, let alone swing one.  I kept having to find empty corners to stand in and breathe. 

 But the excitement of it all more than made up for it!  I saw James Martin in the flesh. John Torode, THE John Torode was right beside me!  Harumi Kurihara was cooking before my very eyes!  We ate the best Udon noodles outside of Japan at the Oishii pavilion. We met loads of lovely people, and ate loads of lovely food.  We bought bottles of oil, fresh buffalo mozzarella, hot sauces, coffee beans....

There was an overwhelming amount of ethical organic blah-dee-blah going on.  I'm as in to this as anyone else right now, but one company really impressed me as we were walking around: The Coffee Fairy.  These lovely girls sell coffee beans direct from farmers in a town in Nicaragua, where the founder spent time teaching English.  You can sign up for a coffee subscription, and all the money goes towards helping schools in the area.  They haven't been around for very long, but they've already raised enough money to buy all new desks, and re-do the toilets in the school. 

This really got me excited!  I've never been a fan of fair-trade.  Companies like Sainsbury's and Tesco make a big deal out of fair-trade because they know they can pull on our heart strings and make us spend more money.  And maybe the farmers do get a better deal.  But the supermarket sure isn't making any sacrifices!  They've got the same big profit margin on the fair-trade coffee as they do on the cheapo stuff.  (Maybe bigger).  The responsibility is left to the consumer alone to pay more.

So I loved this idea. Martina Gruppo imports the beans direct from the farmers, and sells it in London at a fair price.  Apparently the stuff is great.  I wouldn't know - I'm a tea girl.  But the sample I tried was pretty drinkable, even for a coffee-phobe like me.

The Oishii Japan pavilion was fantastic.  It was Harumi Kurihara (the Japanese Martha Stewart) and her entourage of about 30 chefs and tourism commission people from Japan.  We bought a bowl of Udon noodles to share, that brought back great memories of our honeymoon in Japan.  The Husband even ordered in Japanese, much to their squealing delight!   

I missed the best bit of the whole day though.... lovely Nora from work represented the Good Food Channel in the Invention Test!  She'll be blogging about it soon, so I'll stick a link up of her successful salmon and Hollandaise sauce, which Greg Wallace declared good.  Go Nora!

 

Back at Panary this week

Right now, I'm sitting in a lovely B&B in Shaftesbury, Dorset.  In the morning, I'll be starting my three day course at Panary, Paul Merry's bread school.  After my apprentice day in August, I've been itching to get back here and learn more! more! more! about professional bread baking. 

The B&B so far is fantastic... I'm looking so forward to spending three days away from work, by myself (miss the husband and cat terribly though), with three days of non-stop bread madness, and three nights of quiet, with just me and the laptop.

I'm a bit worried about dinner though.  What's worse - eating by yourself in a pub? (shudder)  Or just grabbing a cold egg and cress sandwich from the fridge in Esso? (cringe)  Can you tell I don't spend a lot of time alone?  

I'm planning to really stretch myself over the next few days though.  I'm going to tackle the two bakery items I fear: brioche and croissants.  I'm also going to try to bake in percentages off the top of my head, like Paul does.  Or divide dough into twenty four identical rolls without weighing.  Or shape 16 loaves into rounds at the same time.  (I don't actually know if he can do that.  I bet he can.)

Off to bed.... more tomorrow night.

Marmesan - Marmite and Parmesan bread and the Brockwell Bake

Okay folks - here it is.   This is where I reveal the new loaf of bread I've been perfecting over the past few months - Marmite and Parmesan bread - Marmesan. (Geddit?)

We came up with the idea when I decided to enter the Brockwell Bake - a baking competition held in Brixton.  The Husband and some friends of ours came up with the ingredients, I came up with the name.  I then took the idea, and worked on it over three months, taking samples into work, until I was happy with the recipe. 

I was VERY excited about the Brockwell Bake.  Legendary bakers judge categories of bread made by the public, (Dan Lepard was a judge last year), and millers and industry professionals hold talks on various topics about Real Bread.  What better way to spend a Sunday afternoon?!

Hopes held high, we proudly arrived with two loaves of freshly baked Marmesan.  There weren't too many entries, but enough to make it competitive.  Each category (white, sourdough, wholewheat etc.) had two levels - professional and home baked.  I entered Marmesan into the home baked Specialty category.   I drooled over a long table of various stoneground organic flours from around the country, and carefully chose three interesting looking ones to take home.

Then we waited.  And waited.  The talks were running excruciatingly late, and finally started around four hours after they should have.  What could have been a very interesting talk from Jonathan Cook of Fosters Windmill, Swaffham Prior kept being interrupted by some mouthy know-it-alls in the front row (who were obviously veteran expert bakers, but come on, you don't interrupt someone presenting to an audience!)

Then the winners of the competition were announced.  It turned out that these same veteran expert bakers could enter the home baked category if they'd baked their entry from home.  Yeah, cos that's fair.  The mouthiest of the mouthy know-it-alls walked away with almost every prize.  Another (non mouthy and quite nice) professional baker walked away with most of the rest of the home baked category prizes.

Resisting the urge to shout "fix!", I collected my flour purchases and stormed off, as best as one can storm off when no one is watching because one didn't win anything...

Turns out the mouthy guy who won everything (including best in show) was the competition organiser. I kid you not.  Take a moment to reflect upon the pure unfairness of it all.  The competition organiser, a veteran professional baker, enters the home baked categories, and wins it all.  What a farce.  What a waste of time, energy, and beautiful Stoates stoneground flour.  And Marmite.

I still stand by the fact that my Marmesan bread was great though, and The Husband can't get enough of it... so here's the recipe:

Marmesan Bread

100g white sourdough leaven
300g strong white bread flour
100g wholemeal flour
300ml warm water
10g fresh yeast, crumbled
200g Marmite
100g freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Mix the leaven, flours and yeast together with the water and knead for five minutes.  Stretch the dough out and pat it into a square.  Pour half the Marmite into the dough, and continue to knead until the Marmite is worked in.  At this point you will think you've ruined your dough as it all turns wet and gooey, but trust me - it will get better.   When you think you're brave enough, add the second half of the Marmite and work it all in.  Your previously white dough will now be a soft orangey-brown colour.  

Shape the dough into a round, and let it rise in a warm covered bowl until it doubles in size.  Press your fingers in the dough to deflate it, and repeat the rise until it doubles in size again.  Shape the dough into a loaf, and place into a bread tin.  Generously shave the Parmesan over the top of the loaf and bake for 35-40 minutes.  Cool on a wire rack.

This bread is really really good with cheese on it, or with baked beans on top for breakfast.

A Boulangerific Week in Provence...

The Husband and I just came back from an incredible week driving around Provence.  I'm still not sure if I was insanely overjoyed at the amount of bakeries the French have, or if I was outrageously jealous.  There is a proper artisan bakery on almost every street - and they do great business. 

Bread highlights of the week include:

• Stumbling into the back of a bakery, fresh off the airplane in Nice.  The bakers were more than happy to let us stand and watch in amazement as they baked loaf after loaf.  "This is the French bread stick...  Very famous in France."  "The baguette?", "Yes!  You've heard of it!?"


• Visiting Chez Auzet in Cavillion, where Peter Mayle wrote his book, "Confessions of a French Baker".  I bought a copy while enjoying a yummy tart and a baguette.  The bread was great, the book was a bit rubbish.  (I should have been tipped off by that awful Russell Crow movie based on another book he wrote!)


• Picking up a fresh loaf of bread every day to eat in the car.  I was a little embarrassed when I noticed all the crumbs all over the floor when we turned the rental car back in.  I'm sure they're used to it.


• Finding a pouch of Provencal herbs and seeds to use in dough.  I think this is as close as the French get to 'bread mix'. 

My new (and foodie) artwork purchase

The minute I laid eyes on this funky muffin triptych, I knew I had to have it.  It's just the perfect artwork for me to own.

I've always had a penchant for triptychs.  Paintings that come in threes have always appealed to me.  This one is using soft, pretty colours.  The detail in it is amazing - the crack in the muffin from the heat of the oven is so realistic that I had to touch the painting to see if it was a real crack. 

(Duh - of course it wasn't.  Off topic:  remember the woman who fell into the crack in the Tate Modern because she thought it was just a painting of a crack?  Har har!)

And the two things that really sealed the deal for me were the fact that they are muffins! (and you all know how much I LOVE muffins!) And that they were painted by my friend the lovely and talented Louise Thompson.  Lou has her Masters in Fine Art, and paints lovely foodie pictures on canvas.  You can see more of Lou's outrageously good work on her website: http://louisecthompson.com

Real Bread Campaign Membership

Ooooooh, how cool is this!?! The Real Bread Campaign is going to be offering a membership scheme in September.  I love the Real Bread Campaign - they really fight to get the word out about how awful factory manufactured bread is in this country. 

The fact is - since after the war, our store-bought bread has been getting progressively worse.  It used to be a healthy staple in our diets.  Now, we're encouraged to buy bread from the supermarket from one of only a handful of large corporations, who have their profits in mind - not our health. 

By law, bread made using modern methods doesn't have to ferment for very long, contains a ridiculous amount of yeast, can be made using nutritionally depleted flour, crazy amounts of salt, and contains a very long list of icky ingredients to give the illusion that it stays fresh for a long time, and to prop it up and give it stability.   The worst part is the enzymes that are used as "processing agents", which don't have to be declared on the label.  These can include such nasties as extract from pig's liver and crushed bones and feathers..... but since it's a processing agent (and not on the label), the bread can still be declared "suitable for vegetarians".   Ew.

Basic real bread contains: flour, water, yeast, salt.   That's it.  You can bake it at home, or buy it from your lovely local artisan baker - of which there are far too few of.  I read somewhere once that most of the bread we buy at the supermarket would not legally be called "bread" in France.

The Real Bread Campaign is trying to change all of this.   They work hard to campaign for healthy bread manufacture, lobby against the big nasty bread companies, and support the good guys who are making a difference to the bread we eat in this country.  And soon, they'll offer membership!!! 

Membership will open up on September 14th, and will cost £20.  According to their website, membership will get you:

• Four issues of True Loaf, the exclusive quarterly magazine
• A membership card offering a wide range of discounts
• Access to the members’ area of the Real Bread Campaign website, packed with additional extras
• The Real Baker-e, an online community where members can find and share supportive advice, ideas and information

And a whole schwack of discounts at bakeries and bakery schools. 

Count me in!!!