ananda's blog

Christmas Rose and Tree 2012

We were supposed to be doing this on Saturday, but had to delay as we had such a sad day yesterday having to put our special and much-loved cat Shuffles to sleep, and sort out a suitable burial in Ingram Valley beneath the Cheviot Hills.

This is very much my take on Eric's formula.   I don't like dried onions, but I love fried onions.   I used my liquid rye sourdough, and it ended up as 30% pre-fermented flour.   There is no added baker's yeast, and the hydration is 70%.   I used an Organic white bread flour in the final dough.   Here is the formula:

Eric’s Favourite Rye

White Levain; Moscow Rye; Stollen Slice

New Breads from Old Favourite Flours

Alnwick Food Festival

22nd and 23rd September 2012

I spent much of last week baking and preparing myself for the challenges and opportunities opening up from this local food festival, now in its 8th year; http://www.alnwickfoodfestival.co.uk

Hello All,

I began writing this account travelling back to the UK, as follows:

Monday 21st August 2012; 14:32, UK time.

Hello from Sunny Northumberland [a pleasant but temporary change!]

I drove down to visit my brother, all too briefly, on Tuesday.   He had some wood for me; a lot of wood, very dry and cut in good-sized lengths for my oven!

We filled the car up with all this wood, then he reminded me about a steam-stripper he was looking onto, which he showed me how to turn into a device to use in my bread oven.   So, I brought that back to Powburn too!

Given my flour delivery was put back a week, and the weather has done nothing except rain here in the UK, seemingly incessantly, and forever, my baking schedule has been somewhat interfered with.

Alnwick Farmers’ Market; Bread and Roses, May 2012 The sun has been shining in the UK this week, and, finally it is warm here; not before time! Yesterday and today’s baking have produced some very tasty breads plus other treats too [croissants, pain au chocolats, pain amandes and spicy buns]! I laid out my produce this evening and came up with 70 loaves plus the aforementioned treats.

Nine Weeks’ Baking; summarised

A lot to write about, I suppose, given I have not managed to post a blog entry for almost nine weeks, mainly because I have been so busy, and tied up with so many baking-related activities.