Monday 21 June 2010
New holiday, new blog
Not really sure why in the end, but we have started s new blog for our holiday this year. So come and join us at alipatch.wordpress.com for up to date in formation on what we are up to... Or at least more up to date than this blog is!
Monday 14 June 2010
Saturday 27 February 2010
New weekend, new loaf...
Given the success last weekend of our second attempt at the Vermont Sour Dough, we were up for a challenge this week. Instead of tring again to see if we could repeat our efforts, we thought it was time to try something new - Raisin Bread.
Forgot to take photos along the way (bugger!), but it has turned out OK so far, despite messing up a couple of steps.
Some things of note - should have removed one oven rack and had the loaf lower in the oven. Will have to remember this for next weekend! Also forgot to score the top again - must leave the knife out at the last step!
Oven was hot when the loaf went in, and oven was steamed. Turned oven down to 200C after 10min to make sure wouldnt over cook. Outside appearance is good so this may have done the trick - now for the cutting...
The loaf hasnt cooled yet, so its a bit soft to cut, but the texture is really nice and even, soft, light - 'edible as bread rather than edible as toast', which is how any bread we have made before this book turned out! Doesnt smell very sour, but will have another think when its cooled.
Forgot to take photos along the way (bugger!), but it has turned out OK so far, despite messing up a couple of steps.
Some things of note - should have removed one oven rack and had the loaf lower in the oven. Will have to remember this for next weekend! Also forgot to score the top again - must leave the knife out at the last step!
- Flour, levain and air all 75F
- Friction 26F
- Water 53F
Oven was hot when the loaf went in, and oven was steamed. Turned oven down to 200C after 10min to make sure wouldnt over cook. Outside appearance is good so this may have done the trick - now for the cutting...
The loaf hasnt cooled yet, so its a bit soft to cut, but the texture is really nice and even, soft, light - 'edible as bread rather than edible as toast', which is how any bread we have made before this book turned out! Doesnt smell very sour, but will have another think when its cooled.
Monday 22 February 2010
Attempt #2
So we identified some things to do differently this time. Biggest problem was that again it was a hot day and we had forgotten to put some water in the fridge before going out for the morning, so getting the water cold when we got home was the first thing to do.
Outcome: Better
Texture is good, holes are more evenly distributed this time. Shape is more consistent too. Taste is good, although not as sour as the first loaf - I think this was due to following the recipe more closely for the levain this time. The first attempt, we used a higher quantity of levain which resulted in a more mature flavour. Will have to experiment with this a little more...
- Room 84F
- Flour 79F
- Liquid Levain 80.9F
- Friction 25F
- Water 33F
- Step 1 - measure and mix. Only mixed for 3min this time, and watched it as it mixed. Looked much more like described in the instructions (sticky mess). So better control on this step. Left for 30 min, which was a bit shorter than last time.
- Next was to mix again, still forgot the salt, but remembered about 1.5 min in, so didnt over mix in this step either - going better than last time!
- Rested for 2.5hours, folded at 50 minute intervals - a bit more evenly spaced this time.
- Pre-shape. Read through instructions a couple of times, so think we have this a bit better this time. We each did a loaf, so now theres a bit of competition!
- Rest for 10 minutes. May have over-rested here last time too.
- Shaping. Remembering which was which, we each shaped our loaves, again we read the instructions a couple of times and realised we missed some steps last time. Have made the loaves a bit flatter this time.
- Remembered to steam the oven (sprayed water in then put a tray of boiling water in the bottom of the oven) as we put the dough in, so hope this helps.
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| From Blog Preparation |
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| From Blog Preparation |
Texture is good, holes are more evenly distributed this time. Shape is more consistent too. Taste is good, although not as sour as the first loaf - I think this was due to following the recipe more closely for the levain this time. The first attempt, we used a higher quantity of levain which resulted in a more mature flavour. Will have to experiment with this a little more...
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| From Blog Preparation |
Saturday 20 February 2010
Vermont Sourdough - the first try
Well its been a while since my last post. Keep thinking we havent been anywhere to speak of, but there have been weekends in the country (mostly visiting family) a long weekend in Daylesford, which was fabulous, definitely worth doing again, and Christmas in South Australia - love those wine regions!
Instead of big holidays, we have been cooking. The latest experiments are with bread. We decided making our own sourdough culture might be fun, so after some internet research, we went ahead and made some. We have been using this with varying degrees of success over the summer as our pizza dough (a regular weekend dinner!).
One of my husbands colleagues has since put him on to a fantastic book called Bread - a bakers book of techniques and recipes by Jeffrey Hamelman. So when our copy arrived this week, we couldnt wait to put it to good use! The recipe we have been recommended is Vermont Sourdough (page 153 for those of you following from home!). So this has been our weekend:
Friday night - get out sourdough starter and make up the liquid-levain build. This is quite straight forward as we have a good 'live' starter already that has been developing over the past few weeks.
Saturday morning - inspect the levain. Its looking good, lots of bubbles - small and large. Culture has grown well overnight. Its a hot day, which is going to make things interesting.
- Flour - 79F
- Room - 81F
- pre-ferment (levain) - 79F
- Friction (mixer) - 26F
- Water - 39F
- Step 1 is to measure and mix ingredients - we mixed for 10 min, although re-reading the recipe, this should have been more like 3-4 minutes. Will see how things go.
- Rest for 1 hour
- Next, mix for 3 min - forgot to add salt, so added and mixed further 1 minute.
- Rest for 2.5 hours, folding at H1 and H2 marks. not sure folding action was quite right - have to work on this.
- Pre-shape - this went well.
- Rest for 20 min
- Shape - need to work on this action too, but looked OK.
- Cook - forgot to steam oven before putting in, so steamed about 10min in, not sure this added any value. Forgot to change oven from fan forced to conventional, so think this is what made the loaves a little lop sided (see picture!).
Outcome: Reasonable.
Texture is good, although bubbles are at the top of the loaf and is a bit dense at the bottom - didnt 'slash' the loaves deep enough before cooking, so this may have contributed. Crust is soft and chewy. Taste and smell are great - just what we would expect. Just have to get the overall look right and texture even.
UPDATE: We have since found out that by not lowering the temperature to compensate for the different distribution of heat from the fan forced oven, this is the likely cause of the 'top rising' of the bread. The additional heat caused the dough to rise too quickly and not cook through as thoroughly, so by using the same temperature, but not the fan for the second try, we had a more consistent outcome.
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| From Blog Preparation |
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| From Blog Preparation |
Tuesday 1 July 2008
The Final Day
After a bit of a sleep in this morning, we packed up our rooms and stored our luggage before spending the day doing whatever we wanted. I had a couple of gifts still to get, as did some of the girls, so we headed out shopping (back to the market that was closed yesterday) and others went to the shopping centre. The boys went to the indoor theme park, and came back a little seedy!
This afternoon, Jodee took the group to try Durian - a disgusting fruit that smells and tastes revolting - which is a local fruit and 'must do' on the list of things for Malaysia (apparently)! Then back to laze around the pool for an hour or so before the bus comes to pick us up to go to the airport.
At the airport, there was just enough time to have a quick bite to eat, and hand over some gifts. Of course, we also had the final Kurung Pandir award (this is an award Jamie started at the beginning of the trip, inviting students to nominate each other for silly things they had done or said each day). Each days winner was noted and voted on, with the winner being a surprise entrant who didnt actually win any of the days, but did get his fair share of nominations - Jamie! I think this is called students revenge!!
This afternoon, Jodee took the group to try Durian - a disgusting fruit that smells and tastes revolting - which is a local fruit and 'must do' on the list of things for Malaysia (apparently)! Then back to laze around the pool for an hour or so before the bus comes to pick us up to go to the airport.
At the airport, there was just enough time to have a quick bite to eat, and hand over some gifts. Of course, we also had the final Kurung Pandir award (this is an award Jamie started at the beginning of the trip, inviting students to nominate each other for silly things they had done or said each day). Each days winner was noted and voted on, with the winner being a surprise entrant who didnt actually win any of the days, but did get his fair share of nominations - Jamie! I think this is called students revenge!!
Monday 30 June 2008
Schools in!
This morning was early to rise, difficult after such a late night last night...
After breakfast, we went to a local high school. It was an amazing performance, we were 'drummed' in to the school, and met by such friendly students and teachers. After hearing about the school, the students put on some amazing performances. The first was a singing group, who were so good, and looked like they were really enjoying themselves. Next was a poem recital, which took some skill - I couldnt have remembered the monologue! Then there were some dance recitals = traditional malay, indian and chinese. Such beautiful costumes. Finally their choir sang some traditional songs.
Afterwards, our students sang Advance Australia Fair and Waltzing Matilda in both English and Indonesian. One of the students, Johnny, has his birthday today, and the Malaysian students got so excited when Jodee announced we were going to sing Happy Birthday in English, Malay and Indonesian - they joined in very enthusiastically!
Gifts were exchanged between the schools and students (including the boys giving some Aussie Rules footballs to the school, which of course they had to teach the students how to kick!), and we were provided with a traditional 'breakfast' (which became lunch) of rice, Sambal (chilli), peanuts, boiled egg and anchovies. This gave all of us a great opportunity to speak with the students and staff. All the students had such a great time, as they were able to spend quite a bit of time sharing (dancing, kicking the footy, dancing etc) with the students. When it was time to go everyone was really disappointed, although heaps of photos had been taken and email addresses exchanged.
After the school visit, we went to the Royal Selangor factory to see how the pewter goods are made, this was just a quick visit as it was just down the road from the school. This was followed by a wander through the bird park, which was lovely, but a lot more birds were in cages than I expected. Finally it was back to the hotel for emailing, resting (and some shopping for those who were interested) before heading out for Teppanyaki for dinner, and back to the markets for another go! The Teppanyaki was disappointing, it was really just a japanese restaurant, where the service was extremely slow - it took an hour to serve our 20 meals! Everyone was tired and grumpy, and wanted to go shopping, so it wasnt the best meal we have had... But Jodee did well with Johnny's birthday cake - Chocolate Mud YUM!!!
The market was crowded, and the part of the market I was interested in closed 5 minutes after we got there, but didnt matter. It was a late night by the time we got back to the hotel.
After breakfast, we went to a local high school. It was an amazing performance, we were 'drummed' in to the school, and met by such friendly students and teachers. After hearing about the school, the students put on some amazing performances. The first was a singing group, who were so good, and looked like they were really enjoying themselves. Next was a poem recital, which took some skill - I couldnt have remembered the monologue! Then there were some dance recitals = traditional malay, indian and chinese. Such beautiful costumes. Finally their choir sang some traditional songs.
Afterwards, our students sang Advance Australia Fair and Waltzing Matilda in both English and Indonesian. One of the students, Johnny, has his birthday today, and the Malaysian students got so excited when Jodee announced we were going to sing Happy Birthday in English, Malay and Indonesian - they joined in very enthusiastically!
Gifts were exchanged between the schools and students (including the boys giving some Aussie Rules footballs to the school, which of course they had to teach the students how to kick!), and we were provided with a traditional 'breakfast' (which became lunch) of rice, Sambal (chilli), peanuts, boiled egg and anchovies. This gave all of us a great opportunity to speak with the students and staff. All the students had such a great time, as they were able to spend quite a bit of time sharing (dancing, kicking the footy, dancing etc) with the students. When it was time to go everyone was really disappointed, although heaps of photos had been taken and email addresses exchanged.
After the school visit, we went to the Royal Selangor factory to see how the pewter goods are made, this was just a quick visit as it was just down the road from the school. This was followed by a wander through the bird park, which was lovely, but a lot more birds were in cages than I expected. Finally it was back to the hotel for emailing, resting (and some shopping for those who were interested) before heading out for Teppanyaki for dinner, and back to the markets for another go! The Teppanyaki was disappointing, it was really just a japanese restaurant, where the service was extremely slow - it took an hour to serve our 20 meals! Everyone was tired and grumpy, and wanted to go shopping, so it wasnt the best meal we have had... But Jodee did well with Johnny's birthday cake - Chocolate Mud YUM!!!
The market was crowded, and the part of the market I was interested in closed 5 minutes after we got there, but didnt matter. It was a late night by the time we got back to the hotel.
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