Tag: bread making

Give Us This Day

Warning. This post is not about religion but bread, although it’s hard to resist segueing into the religious connotations associated with bread, not to mention bread’s best mate, wine. As these two life-giving basics feature often in my daily life, I give thanks but I’m not sure who to. I remember the ending of the Lord’s prayer quite well: it always signified the end of Mass which meant freedom was just around the corner. I also recall the hilarious Mondegreen* of my younger sister’s friend, Cecilia, whose child’s voice could be heard clearly from a nearby pew, as she chanted

         “Give us this day our daily bread…. and deliver us from eagles, Amen”

I  rather like this alternate ending and I think my chickens feel the same way too.

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Buon Giorno. Il pane del giorno.

The joys of bread are almost too numerous to list. Unassuming and humble, bread is central to most western meals. The breaking of bread at the table amongst friends, the dipping of bread into new season’s olive oil, the grilling of bread for bruschetta or the morning toasting of yesterday’s loaf, smothering it with quince jam, or Vegemite, or just butter. The dunking of bread into soup, or the submerging of bread under Italian Ribollita or French onion soup. The left over stale loaf crumbed and stored to top a future  gratin, or cubed then baked in garlicky oil for croutons. Given the effort gone into baking a good loaf of bread, (even if you haven’t made it yourself), it seems a sin to waste it.

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Zuppa di fagioli bianchi e bietola, con pane di ieri. The bread turns this soup into a meal.

Bread making has a certain rhythm: once the pattern is broken, it takes a bit of discipline to get it all happening again. My sourdough bread takes 24 hours to come to fruition: one day of feeding my starter, beginning at 7 am,  with 4-5 hours between each feed. One evening of mixing and stretching, which takes very little time, but requires my presence at home. An overnight rise of around 8 hours followed by an early start at around 6 am  to shape, rise and re- shape at  7 am. Into the oven, a 40 minute bake, and there you have it. Fresh bread by 8 am, 24 hours later. Cost, around 50 cents a loaf. Very little work, but bucket loads of discipline, and a ritualistic start to each day, not unlike meditating or praying.

The aroma of freshly baked bread is a morning sensory pleasure, only to be rivalled by the smell of a good curry in the evening or the aroma of slow baked quinces on a chilly Autumn day.

Don’t waste good bread. Sermon over.

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“A mondegreen is a mishearing or misinterpretation of a phrase as a result of near homophony that gives it a new meaning. Mondegreens are most often created by a person listening to a poem or a song; the listener, being unable to clearly hear a lyric, substitutes words that sound similar, and make some kind of sense. American writer Sylvia Wright coined the term  in 1954, writing about how as a girl she had misheard the lyric “…and laid him on the green” in a Scottish ballad as “…and Lady Mondegreen”

“Pinker gives the example of a student stubbornly mishearing the chorus to ” I’m Your Venus” as I’m your penis, and being surprised that the song was allowed on the radio.

More examples of well known mondegreens can be found here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondegreen

In My Baking Kitchen, October 2015

A duck full of sugar
A duck full of sugar

School holidays bring a flurry of baking as the young folk flock to the kitchen for pancakes, chocolate chip biscuits and cake making. This, along with my renewed passion for sourdough bread making, makes the kitchen the centre for flour, sticky bowls and general mayhem.

I asked him not to pose!
I asked him not to pose!

This batch of buttery biscuits was devoured in less than two hours. The kids pick out the biggest ones to eat first then claim to know exactly which biscuits they personally made. At times ‘there’s a fraction too much friction”, there are monsters in my kitchen.

Concentrating on shapes.
Concentrating on shapes.

I invested in some bread making paraphernalia. This whisk is designed to stir wet dough at the initial mixing stage. Impressed by the man on the Breadtopia site, I ordered one and then added a few other items to make the postage from USA worthwhile! Included was a silicon mat which I hope will encourage better pastry making. I used the whisk this evening and soon dumped it for my hands! Maybe more practice is required before I whisk like the man from Breadtopia.

Bread dough whsk
Bread dough whisk

Other bread making gear was purchased in my favourite shop of all time, Costante Imports in Preston, Victoria. Costante is a shrine to self-sufficiency. The shop has expanded over the years and the place is always abuzz. They sell equipment for wine making, small frantoi for pressing olives, sausage making gear, pizza ovens, cheese and bread making equipment, copper pots and brass rustic hanging lights. The surrounding conversation is Italian as young chefs gather to buy authentic pots and pans, and suburban grandmothers come for corks and bottle tops. It is a land of temptation and a source of inspiration. http://www.costanteimports.com.au/

bannetons for bread rising.
Bannetons for bread proving from Costante.

My flour collection has taken up residence in the laundry, which is slowly morphing into a larder. The flours include one huge supply of white bakers flour, this one in a 12.5 kilogram bag for $12.00 and milled in Yackandandah, Victoria. I also keep a softer white flour for pastry, biscuit and cake making as well as a self raising flour. Then there’s a Tipo ’00’ from Italy.( It is sometimes impossible to find the ‘best by’ or packed on date on Italian produce, which is a concern for bread making where fresh flour is important). Then comes the finely stone ground semolina, Atta, Australian wholemeal and spelt, rye, and buckwheat! This is ridiculous I know, but it will get used.

My new starter, Sorella, is bouncy and reliable: thanks Celia for the emergency back up. I make two types of bread when not experimenting: a plain white and a 75% white with 25% spelt. Both are equally popular.

Sour dough white, Celia's recipe.
Sour dough white, Celia’s recipe.

I preheat the oven to 250c, add metal trays at that point, then dust a pizza paddle with fine semolina, turn the proved bread onto the paddle, slash ‘with panache’, then slide it off onto the hot tray. I give the bread and oven a quick spritz with water then quickly close the door and reduce the temperature to 220c. Performing this action with two loaves at once is proving tricky while trying to maintain oven heat, like a clumsy kitchen ballet performed by a strega. The ‘spring’ on my latest loaves is much better, the texture much lighter, but retaining the sour dough taste, so the performance is worth it.

Soudough with spelt
Sourdough loaves with spelt

Celia from Fig Jam and Lime Cordial hosts this monthly kitchen event. Check out some of the other posts. Celia is also responsible for spreading the love of bread making throughout her global community, which always feels local and close.