Hello again.
Quite by accident, I happened to stumble across this film from Belgium, made in 1956. I enjoyed it, and maybe you will too.
Jeremy
I was re-reading Elizabeth David's English Bread and Yeast Cookery and discovered the passage in whiich she describes the author Virginia Woollf's technique for making a cottage loaf. That sounded like fun, so I decided to give it a try, and was very pleased with the outcome. I blogged about it here.
Here's the loaf just after removing the cloche.
And here it is after final browning.
I set out to make what has become my standard 25% wholewheat rustic Italian loaf (blogged here) and discovered, well into weighing and mixing the dough, that I had run out of white flour. I had only 150 gm and the recipe called for 300 gm. But I did have plenty of wholewheat. And it was too late to stop and go get more. So I just made up the missing mass with wholewheat flour. Nothing ventured ...
Dan Lepard had a great recipe in The Guardian magazine back on 19 September 2009. I don't recall anyone here posting about it, but when I tried it I encountered a problem. Nothing insurmountable, though, thanks to Dan's forum.
Anyway, I wrote about it in detail at my blog. I'm putting this here in case anyone else comes looking.
And here's the warning: be very careful not to overheat the initial mixture of rye and coffee.
Happy baking
Jeremy
Would you believe it? France too succumbs.
"The decline of French bread over the past few decades is one of the saddest aspects of the ransom paid to progress, and much of the blame must simply go to good old greed."
I went to a really interesting bread-making course about 10 days ago, and have simply not had time to write it up yet. One thing I did want to share though, was a film we were shown. It is called Les blés d'or, and was made by ADDOCS, a French film-making organization.
Much of the bread you can buy in shops in Italy remains remarkably good. Some things, though, aren't available, at least not nearby. One of those is rye bread. So I resolved to make some this weekend, using a recipe for Heidelberg Rye from the 1973 edition of Bernard Clayton Jr's The Complete Book of Breads.
Conclusion: A fine loaf, but I do need to internalise that stuff about watching the loaf not the clock. If I can do it while the bread is in the oven, why not while it is rising?
Has anyone here come across the French wheat varieties known as Touselle or Touzelle? (I did search first.) Louis XI, gravely ill, thought that only bread made from Touzelle could restore him to health.
I ask because a friend has written about the rediscovery of these varieties, and wondered if anyone had access to the article L'homme qui plantait des blés by Isabelle FAURE in Nature & Progres No. 59 (Sep/Oct 2006).
Thanks
Jeremy
