It all depends on what you are making. Basically you want it to roughly double in size.

This weekend when making bread I had it next to the fire to keep it warm and increase proofing speed (cold slows proofing speeds). I completely forgot about it and only remembered when a friend who was round asked what was on the floor?

Over Proofed Dough by jethro - 1, on Flickr

'Disaster' my wife happly chortled.

'Not so' said I. 

Re moulded in 30 seconds, back in the tin and we cooked it 25 minutes later. It was great, unfortunately it was eaten before I could take a picture.

Even over proofing like I did doesn't mean the end of your loaf. You can still bring it back but you can't do it indefinately.

I sat back yesterday and tried to figure out why I am suffering from bakers-block. I am having a very hard time coming up with new things that I want to try at the moment. It didn’t take long to figure out the various causes, but as I study foodways and traditions and the role of food in our emotional lives, I find it all very interesting as well as frustrating.

My mother in law passed away just as I was preparing to come home from Italy. I was eating an Italian feast in rural Italy when I got the call from my husband. There I sat with a wonderful group of women, feeling utterly helpless to comfort my own people. These women gathered up my spirits, held my hand, and my friend Emily offered up a prayer for the strength of my family in my absence that would have made an atheist weep. There, around the table, we sat. They shared wisdom with me. And, they helped set me on my course home to my family.

When I arrived home, ready to cuddle and console, I found that my little family had fared exceptionally well in my absence. I must add, in addition to coddling on the evening of her death, my husband was making sure the children had done their homework…because he got them up and got them off to school the next morning. I likely would have issued an invitation to wallow in grief for a few days. My husband chose to teach our children that life goes on, there is a time and place for everything, and work still needs to be done even on the tough days. For this reason alone, I am glad I was out of the country when this occurred because I respect that decision and lesson immensely.

But, not only do I have a compassionate yet stoic husband, but I returned to a family surrounded by the love of friends. That love, to a great extent, was manifested in food.** On the evening of the death, while my husband was still consoling our children, our friends began to feed my family.

The food poured in. They ate meatloaf and all the wonderful sides that evening. After my flight arrived in Dallas, I came home to find smoked chicken, macaroni and cheese, and twice baked potatoes. The next evening, friends brought pot roast and all the trimmings. A magnificent cheese tray with local honey and Marcona almonds. Pies, cakes, cookies. Dishes for the freezer. Sandwiches for the children. A bowl of fruit. A ham, which we are still eating for breakfast every morning. Food is the way we comfort each other. And, it works. When you are too tired to pick up a fork, much less cook, and someone puts a plate of pot roast in front of you they are telling you that they love you, that you have some room to feel pain, and that life goes on.

It is an implied social compact. I’ve got you now. When my difficult time comes, you can cover me. This is a community ethos. I also think this is what starts to fall by the wayside when we don’t break bread with our families and friends often enough. It is an old fashioned tradition viewed through the busy lens of the day, but taking food to a grieving family is a tradition that should never end. I cannot begin to describe how helpful the few days of respite from the kitchen was for all of us.

Now that life is a little bit back to normal I find that I have not posted much on PIE, not surprisingly, because people have been feeding ME for the past 8 days. I haven’t cooked! Thank you, dear friends.

But cooking is my soul work, and now I find myself yearning to be back in the kitchen. But, I also find myself not wanting to cook anything new at the moment, which doesn’t bode well for our cyber relationship. But, I think a few more days should do the trick. Oddly, I want to cook my old favorites and work on things at which I should be better. Thus I found myself staring at five varieties of apples in the grocery store, wondering about pies that I had made in the past, and looking forward to making a new one. You see, I have a special thank you pie to make.

But in the meantime, my apple friend, Jon Rowley, had posted a story and recipe about Tart Tatin, a rather simple apple pastry. The “fancy” name had me fearing it for years. Had someone told me that it was just the apple pie equivalent of an upside down cake, I probably would have attempted it sooner. You see, I learned you simply cook apples in a sauce of butter and sugar on the stove top, cover it with a pastry crust, bake it for a bit, and then flip it out onto a dish. The crust ends up on the bottom, and the lovely carameled apples end up on top, and it is quite a thing to behold. Turns out, it is not complicated.

But, when you are dealing with a pile of cooked apples, face up, the decision about which apples to use becomes of primary importance. Hidden inside a pie with a bottom crust and a top crust, apples can hide and mingle, especially if you do as I do, and use a variety of apples. But with the Tart Tatin, you aren’t mixing up a giant bowl of apple bits, you are cooking and baking big chunks of apple, so they need to not only hold up to the heat, they need to taste wonderful. There is less room for marginal apples here.

This is a problem for those of us who live in grocery store land, as opposed to a land of orchards. I realized, that I really didn’t know how any of the apples before me would perform. I went ahead and made the tart. I used three apple types. It was good…nothing worth photographing and sharing, though. It was an experiment. But it solidified my sense that I needed to put my available apples to the test before I willy-nilly cast them into a pie shell for a pie that was intended for someone special.

A thousand words in and here is my main point. Let us all put our apples to the test before we bake with them again!! Of course, I got this idea because Jon suggested it years ago, but I never slowed down long enough to experiment with it myself.

Over Christmas, like many of you I'm sure, we had lots of people round for Christmas and the surrounding period. We get through a lot of bread so I wend on a mission for an afternoon. Mainly just tin loaves but a couple of hand crafted loaves and buns thrown in.

As always when the kitchen is busy it is warm the hardest problem I had with these was timing. There isn't an exact time for proving your bread and it depends on environemental conditions loads. As I'm always taking up loads of room in the Kitchen with bread proving I had to cook on both the Aga and electic cooker in the picture.

Proving Bread by jethro - 1, on Flickr

When cooking bread on an Aga you many not know the exact tempereture for the timings. In this scenario you need to check your bread. When you think it is ready get it out and tap it on the back. The sound should be a hollow thud.

Christmas Loaves by jethro - 1, on Flickr

Anyone else have a bit of a baking session over Christmas? Anyone make their own Christmas Pudding or Christmas Cake? I would love to hear or see some pictures.

Happy Baking

Jethro

There has been a big increase in home baking recently. People start off with the sandwhich loaf in a tin or a bread machine. You realise that you've done something special and want to do it again. As you get addicted to the smell of fresh bread and your cravings get worse you look for something with a little more kick. You move onto more and more exotic breads culminating in the dark arts or SOUR DOUGHS!!!

The more you bake the more it comes about creating something which, looks just as amazing as it tastes. You think everyone should do it.

This thread is about proving baskets and how you can make bread look extra special.

I would love to get some photos of people's home baked goodies.

Here is the first, a Levain de Campagne, in a cane proving basket.

Levain De Campagne by jethro - 1, on Flickr

I've recently been playing around with a bread machine to see what results you can actually get out of one.

I would really like some feedback from anyone using a bread machine with what machine your using, what your baking, how it comes out, what you like and don't like about them.

Personally because I love sandwiches the hole in the bottum of the bread is slightly annoying.

What do you think?

Baked Plat 2 by jethro - 1, on Flickr

It is a sandwich bread with a twist.

Using a normal white bread recipe I split the ingredients in half and with one half I added 20g of tomato puree.

Mixed up I then had one red and one white batch.

Thin bread roles by jethro - 1, on Flickr

After rolling these out and folding them together I folded it in half placed it in a bread tin and baked it up.

Started Plating by jethro - 1, on Flickr

Foldedt he Plat in Half by jethro - 1, on Flickr

The taste of the tomato doesn't come through too strongly and looks great in the office or at school. I've had numerous people asking where I got my sandwhiches and most don't believe me when I tell them.

Baked Plat 1 by jethro - 1, on Flickr

Leodis asked how to make Crisop Crusty Bread.

Here is the secret.

You need to get steam into the oven. This will help the crisp up the top.

This is what I do.

When the oven is heating up put in an deep cooking tray. Empty and metal. This will get very hot by the time you're ready to put your bread in the oven.

As you put the bread in the oven have a glass of water standing by. After putting the bread in the oven quickly pour the glass of water onto the metal cooking tray from the edge closest the door.

Please, please be careful when you do this.

The water will boil straight away and steam will billow up. If done properly you will be fine.

Quickly close the door and you will have a hot steamy oven.

Let the oven do it's business and take out the bread when it is done.

Nice Crispy Bread.

Don't forget whatever you are doing with your oven don't stick your head infront of the door when you open it. Very hot air will be coming out..... unless it's off.

Adding water to the oven when baking bread by jethro - 1, on Flickr

I had a couple of packs left over so wanted to finish them off. I had 500g of Malthouse which I made into half of this and the other half is 300g whole spelt and about 230g of strong white.

I did one hard kneed and left the dough for about 45 mins for its first prove.

I then knocked it back and put them both in one large tin next to each other. Proving took a while as it is quite cold at the moment. We still have snow on the ground and it is threatening to snow all the time. The colder it is the longer it takes to prove.

When it was ready I sliced the top with my kitchen knife and shoved it in the oven (nice and hot already)

35mins later out it came, as you can see perfectly done.

Malthouse half and white/spelt half by jethro - 1, on Flickr

I could help myself and drived right in to have a hot slice with some good quality butter.

mmmmm

Strong White/Whole Spelt Half by jethro - 1, on Flickr

PS I would normally leave it to cool properly on a wire rack

I was up at the BBC Good Food Show last week and had a great time. No surprise I was looking after our bread flours and answering everyone’s questions.

It's a great opportunity to meet producers and talk about good food, no pun intended.

The flour which got the most attention was the Kamut and then Spelt. Kamut is an ancient variety of grain is very very old. It is the grain that the Pharaohs of Egypt used to make their bread. It has a great taste and can make lovely bread. There is more info on the website as well as some recipes.

I stayed at a local B&B called Church Farm. I would take them over a hotel chain any time. On the second evening there I said that I would make them some bread on their Aga. Just as I arrived with flour and yeast their two children came in from school. After not too much encouragement their mum allowed me to teach them how to make bread.

I don’t think she realised what she was letting herself in for...

Within a couple of minutes we had flour and dough all over the kitchen and two happy little boys. Unfortunately they had to go to bed as the bread went in the oven but they got to see the bread the next morning. They were so happy with the result that they wanted to take them to school for show and tell rather than eating them.

It’s easy to make your own bread. All you need is Flour, Yeast, Water and an Oven.

We added a little salt and oil but it isn’t a requirement. You don’t even need a tin.

Everyone can make and enjoy bread.

making bread with the boys of church farm by jethro - 1, on Flickr

I started with a Soda bread and a normal loaf yesterday. I'm making it with a heritage wheat. This is a wheat that isn't in mass production in the UK. There are only about 350T in the world. This is actually a very small amount.

The grain hasn't been seen for over 300 years and is about as English and it gets. It's a slight mix but the main wheat variety is called Bearded April, a name which I rather like.

Anyway, I've been playing around with this new flour for the last couple of weeks. It isn't out on the market or in the supermarkets or anywhere. You can't buy this yet and as such there aren't any recipes. I'm playing around with the flour adapting recipes as it doesn't perform as a normal flour.

Despite having a high protein content it isn't crusting as well as I would expect and is quite loose. On the other hand it has the most amazing taste. When this is perfected it is going to be my number one choice.

My latest soda bread is in the oven at the moment so I have to keep dashing off to check on it. Only a couple more minutes.

The sandwich loaf is still evading me at the moment. I'm getting closer and I think within a couple more sessions I will have it mastered. The flour is taking a lot of water at the moment. It's almost more like a rye dough than a wheat dough.

I will keep you informed as to my progress...

IMG_04Heritage Soda Bread from the side by jmarriage, on Flickr

I started my latest sourdough about 5 weeks ago. It's now going full throttle.

It isn't hard.

These are the steps.

1. Add 1 teaspoon of rye flour.
2. Add a small amount of water. You need enough to make a paste. Not cement though!

Repeat twice a day. Once at breakfast and once at dinner. After 4-5 days you will notice it starts to get bubbly.  This is your own personalised sourdough.

How easy it that... 15secs twice a day.

White Sourdough mixture by jethro - 1, on Flickr

Since I can remember I’ve been eating homemade bread of every conceivable variety from Sourdoughs to Spelt through to the normal white loaf.

There’s no taste like your own bread. I started making bread in my toddler years, obviously with help from mum or dad. I also remember the fun we had at the local playgroup when Mum brought along dough for people to mould and the excitement of taking hope my baked dough objects. 

At home it was often my duty to add the yeast and then help out with the kneading.  I must confess that I did go through a stage of wanting to eat sliced white bread because some friends ate it (better the devil you know...). But I never felt satisfied eating those sandwiches and it wasn’t long before I preferred home make bread.

When I went to Newcastle Uni I bought a bread machine which ran almost every day so that we could have good bread. I am still making bread on a regular basis and still expanding my recipe list.

I’ve now moved away from the bread maker. Although it’s much easier once you have the basic knowledge you can make much better and varied bread at by hand, plus you don't get a hole in the middle.

As I bake at least twice a week I’m going to try and keep a log of my different breads, issues, learning and advice.

Being part of Doves Farm I’ve been lucky enough to spend time with some amazing bakers, see different techniques and get the inside tips.

If anyone wants to learn more about baking this course is worth the time.

He can provide expert advice on setting up your own bakery, provide you with recipes and little tips of the trade that he has picked up over his career. Or if you're just a foodie then your in for a treat as Emmanuel has enough stories from his career to keep anyone happy.

If anyone else has been on this course I would love to hear your feedback and experiences. What was your favourite bread?

Mine was the potato and onion sourdough loaf.

I'm still full from lunch...