November Endings with Bread, a New Approach

I put off the two bedroom painting projects to nurse myself back to health. I have had a sinus cold/infection for two weeks now and just when I think it is easing off I have another night of coughing and sleeplessness. Sometimes that leads to a hot lemon and honey drink to steam the discomfort away with a book or more knitting. More often than not, it's a book I choose just in case my groggy mind leads me to a knit mistake I would have to frog back.

The book I read was 'Slade House' by David Mitchell. This is the first book I have read in a long while that really had a well written writing style. Thank you David! Sort of a ghost story, but more complex than that.

I am also researching one of my other hobbies of bread baking. This time with Peter Reinhart's book - Crust and Crumb. I used to make the best tasting bread. It looked beautiful, but it really had a wonderful flavour. I haven't been able to capture it in the last few years and I blamed the modern grains we have to work with. Modern grains may very well be part of the problem, but perhaps my methods have slipped too? So I read Chapters one and two word for word and only occasionally looked ahead.

Well I started yesterday's bread making off differently. I started with a 'biga style' preferment. I mixed up a few pounds and let it age and do its flavour development at room temperature for 6 hours. I took off a pound, broke it up into small pieces in my large mixing bowl and added my fresh ingredients for two loaves worth. I put it through two risings and one final proof before the bake.

I monitored the internal temperature of the dough and the final bread; something I haven't done before. Final temperature of the loaf just out of the oven was 207 F degrees. Actually it should have been 185F according to the book, but it looked good.

The aroma of the bread coming from the oven at the 20 minute mark, I thought, was different and more pleasant than any of my previous breads. It was baking at 350F for 42 minutes. The loaves were for sandwich bread, so not a fancy artisan loaf. When they were removed from the oven, I tipped them out to check the colour which was good and set them on racks to cool.

By now, it is 10pm and the house smelled really good! I was supposed to wait 2 hours, but my husband had to have some right away, so we tried it immediately. I am fortunate to have some 'farm butter' in the house at the moment, so we cut into the loaf, sniffed it, examined the crumb and did the taste test with the 'farm butter'.

It was delicious! And the flavour of the other loaves (I can only describe it as yeast and alcohol) I had been making the last few years was not present in this one. This one was sweet tasting and had a wonderful texture and flavour. A definite success. I'm a believer in the science and chemistry in bread baking.

I can't do this post without a bread picture. A little lopsided, but unique.

Multigrain Sandwich loaf

Bread

...to end the old year and start the new year of 2015.

Cheese Bread Results

Here it is:
Baked. Heel of the loaf sliced & consumed. How would I rate this? 3/5 for taste & appearance. Not spectacular, but quite good. Not very cheesy & no it did not stick to the pans.

Would I make it again? Maybe with chunks of sharp old cheddar.

So Many Things

There are so many things to be done when I have time off. Right now it's only the weekend - I know that sounds like a lot of time, but it's not really. I can't fit everything in that I must do.

I did take time out to make some bread first thing this morning. I retrieved James Beard on Bread book and it automatically opened at the cheese bread page. I've never made it before, but it sounded good & interesting and the pages rested open there when I pulled out the book.

Cheese Bread

It's had its first rising and now I'm about to place them in their pans for the second & final rise. Later today I will post the final result. There is a lot of parmesan cheese in them so if they don't stick to the pans, I will be very surprised. Til later.

What Can Be Done In One Day OFF Work?

Well...quite a bit I think.

This is the first day's beginning. Since I rarely (almost never) buy store bought treats I always spend some of my time cooking. My hubby loves my poppyseed rolls which I prepare almost exclusively for him. This is what they look like.

2 Poppyseed Rolls

Then I felt like we should have some fresh bread. It looks like whole wheat, but for 6 c. of flour
, only 1 c. is whole wheat flour.

It's as good as it looks!

Then I thought bran muffins with dates would be good for breakfast:

Bran Date Muffins

Meanwhile by the time the bread had its first rising I was able to get the laundry finished washing & out on the line. How can you tell we live in a rural area? I like it that way!

When I was living the life, the sunflowers just kept growing & growing. I believe they are Russian Mammoth. They tower over my husband. We have groups of them planted all over the place.

Sunflowers 2011. The tallest one is 10' plus.

This is tansy, aka Bitter Buttons. It is another very tall plant with lacey leaves & small velvety flowers. I dyed some British Milk Sheep fleece with it to see the yellow I would get.

Br. Milk Sheep Fleece in Tansy vat.

Tansy

Tansy yellow on BMS fleece

Tansy yellow w. white fence for comparison

I had to fit in a little knitting too. These heavy work socks are now done. Started last winter, then ran out of Briggs & Little wool. Soon to be on their way through our mail system to Nova Scotia.

Briggs & Little boot sock. Heavy, oh ya!!

I kept the dye pot of tansy & added the woad leaves after I had removed the indigo from them & left it to simmer for an hour. Then I added alum mordanted Br. M. S. fleece and got an interesting result - it's on the right. The fleece on the left is a delicate aqua on Br. M. S. fleece. I made a mistake & added ammonia to the vat when I should have added the thiox. Oh well. This is all the woad from this year. I will have to try again next year.

Woad dye on left. Exhausted woad leaves in old tansy vat on right.

This is the indigo dye result (powdered indigo) used in last year's woad vat I kept. The green is over dyed with indigo on Golden Marguerite.

I have some acid dye, red, yellow, turquoise on the stove right now that are ready to come off. I'm using fleece from Ille de France sheep.

Ciba Acid Turquoise

Ciba Acid Yellow 

Ciba Acid Red (?)  Looks like orange.

There's more, but that's all I'm doing for now.

A Full Day

Little bit of sunshine today; some heavy rain and a lot of activity.

Andean Plying Tool

Toque, my spinner's project

Newly Baked Bread

Carding Romney fleece

Coreopsis, a dye plant

I did some heavy weeding in my side garden (the one I see everytime I arrive home from work), sewing for a customer, knitting on my spinner's project, baking bread, preparing cinnamon buns for tomorrow, vaccuuming the car and carding more Romney fleece.

Rearranged and Weeded

Marigold, a dye plant

I'm pleased with what I accomplished. I wish I could say it's all done so that I can get back to the weaving, but not quite yet. I must get this project finished and mailed away before I can allow myself to pursue my weaving.