I've been feeling very inspired both by The Great British Bake Off, and our soup and bread feast at school, so on Sunday morning, still in our PJ's, Rachel and I made a simple white loaf. We used Jamie Oliver's simple recipe, but thirded it to make a smaller loaf. Mostly, this went well, except when we forgot to third the amount of yeast, so weighed in 30g, then had to try to scrape out 20g! Oops!
However, after thorough kneading and its first proving session, we were very proud of our quite attractive plaited loaf.
At this point we made two small mistakes. Mistake one: we went shopping, leaving the loaf to prove for too long. Mistake two: we forgot to dust the top with flour, and put it under clingfilm.
The result? One massively oversized loaf, entirely welded to the clingfilm.
It was a real beast! A true bloater!! Hilarious. Even more hilarious was the process of trying to remove it from the clingfilm. We howled with laughter!
Whoops-a-daisy! Ever creative, Rachel decided that rather than a plaited loaf, which it certainly was NOT, we should have a hedgehog loaf! So out came the scissors and our poor loaf got poked into a vaguel hedgehoggy shape:
Cute! Then we flung him in the oven to bake. Considering all he'd been through, he didn't look too bad when he came out. A bit flat, yes. Rather over-proved and stodgy, yes. Not really hedgehoggy, I'll admit. Smelling so strongly of yeast we were worried we'd get tiddly eating it, that's true. But hey, it looked a bit like bread and it tasted awesome.
And for lunch, which Mum was down for, it made excellent steak sandwiches. Yum-tastic!
Next week will shall have another attempt at baking bread. This time we know the pitfalls to avoid. It's been a fun adventure, nonetheless. I do like a good bake!
And hey, check out the amazing chocolate a pear frangipane tart Mum baked for our dessert!
It was deeeelicious! But then, she does teach food at a High School. I'd expect nothing less!