Category: Bread and baking

Garlic and Rosemary Focaccia

Well, if you are going to make soup then you need bread to go with it. You could buy stuff, I suppose, but as we are becoming Domestic Goddesses and nothing fazes us… obviously, the way forward is to make the world’s easiest bread.

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All you need is less than an hour,

250 g of strong bread flour

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7g of instant yeast (that’s a sachet or a teaspoon of instant packet yeast – yes, you eagle eyed baking detectives, I am using a different packet from the  last time. Just thought I’d give it a go, that’s all)

Olive oil

Garlic

Rosemary

Salt – you know I love that lovely, crunchy, large crystalled Maldon.

In a large bowl, put the flour, yeast and a teaspoon of salt and add 1 tablespoon of olive oil.  I did it in my food mixer because (am I boring you with this? I only have one working arm you know) I needed to give it a good mixing and there’s only so much I can do…. add in 150 ml of warm water and mix it till it becomes a smooth dough.

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Get it out onto a floured wooden board and knead it till it looks smooth and bouncy. Then, on a clean surface, put down some olive oil, flop the dough onto it and using a rolling pin, roll it out…

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It just needs a rough roll to get it smoothed out.

I use silicon sheets – you can get them anywhere nowadays – I even got some in a Pound Store.  Absolutely brilliant for baking and cooking with. Anyway, put a silicon sheet on a baking tray and put your oiled dough on there.

Chop some garlic and rosemary leaves finely

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… then scatter it over your dough, then sprinkle it with lovely crunchy salt

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You need to let the dough rise in a warmish place for half an hour or so. Cover it in greased cling flim and let it rise.

I have been known to help it by standing the baking tray on top of the soup pan. Apart from anything else it frees up bench space so you can have a quick wipe down…

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Then, when it has risen up and become puffed up and bouncy. turn the oven on to 200 degrees and while that is heating, peel back the cling film, poke the foccacia all over with your fingers and drizzle it with olive oil

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Into the oven with it for fifteen or so minutes until it is golden brown

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Let it cool just a bit and then…. serve it up. Beautiful garlic and rosemary focaccia, perfect for your soup…. in fact, just perfect.

A one armed cook

… is actually not much use. Particularly a one armed cook who wails a lot whilst wearing a sling. I’m hoping things will  better tomorrow so in the meantime I am lying in bed, reading cookery books.

I was up early, to get a glass of water and looked out at the city below

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That makes me think, hmmmm,  comfort food…. and somehow, because I feel so awful, I thought of what my mother would have done to look after me.  Autumn afternoons, curled up on a sofa, covered in a blanket with Ma bringing me hot toasted crumpets with butter and honey….

So I took out “Bread: River Cottage Handbook No 3” and looked up crumpets. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is producing a series of River Cottage handbooks and this one, on all aspects of bread and baking, is excellent. It’s also a very good read and I’m sure that’s nothing to do with the drugs I’ve been given.

I don’t know why I haven’t thought to make crumpets before, or why I must have thought they would be difficult… So, as soon as I can manage to move my arm, guess what I am going to be baking? 

Well then, who’s with me? If I do it first will you have a go? How good would that be? And with butter and honey melting on top of them …….

No Knead Bread and the one armed cook

One of my favourite things is making bread. I love the smell of it as it bakes and the

way the smell filters everywhere.

It’s when I bake bread that I feel that I am doing a good job of feeding the Bear.

Sometimes, it is just what I need to do to make up for any housewifely transgressions.

I’m a better baker than I am a housewife and he forgets my faults when he sees

a lovely fresh loaf.

I’d seen various people talk about The No-Knead Bread,  by Jim Lahey at the

Sullivan Street Bakery  in New York

 and found links to it in the New York Times by Mark Bittman – and thought

that I would give it a go.

Read those articles. Trust me, it works.

And it works well enough that we prefer it to any other bread we can buy here.

The plus point is that there is no kneading. A good enough reason in itself to

try it, but it will be especially useful this week.

Tomorrow I will be in hospital having an operation on my arm to repair a

damaged tendon and I will be unable to do anything much with it for some time.

I have a feeling things might get tricky……

Anyway, back to the bread. It takes time to do – 12 – 18 hours but the thing is,

it isn’t 12 -18 hours of work.

The yeast does the work…. very slowly. All you have to do is mix the dry

ingredients together, add water and then leave till the next day.

Then stick it in the oven. How easy is that?

Right then

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Get some decent bread flour

and some yeast

and some salt.

The recipe  uses American cups – most of us have cup measures in the house,

failing that, remember that American measures are based on volume,

not weight, so if you use, say a teacup,

remember to use the same measure throughout.

 Get a big bowl and measure into it 3 cups of the bread flour.

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Sprinkle over that a quarter teaspoon of dried yeast and

one and a half teaspoons of salt.

Stir them all together.

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See, easy so far, eh?

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Then add one and a half cups of water

(the original recipe says one and five eighths,

so put an extra spoonful in)

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Stir it together

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And then it looks like this. Rough and ready. Lumpy, even.

But it doesn’t matter!

You don’t have anything more to do other than cover it in cling film

and leave it to one side for 12 -18 hours or so.

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Because you use so little yeast it is very easy to digest –

none of this partially fermented stuff you get in shops.

This is a long slow rise……..

The next day, flour a board thoroughly and take a look  at your bowl.

The dough seems impossibly wet  and

people have been known to feel slightly panicked at this stage…

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That can’t be right, you are thinking……

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Look at it pulling… but is IS right. See those bubbles,

stretching and tearing?

They are going to transform this wet and sticky lump of dough into

the most delicious bread…

You have to tear it out of the bowl

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It is incredibly wet and sticky but don’t worry about that,

it is just how it should be.

Roll the messy lump in the flour and it magically

transforms itself into this lovely smooth ball.

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 Just roll… no kneading…..leave it for ten minutes or so,

covered in the clingfilm you took off the bowl and then…

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….dust a tea towel with flour, or, as I am using here, cornmeal (fine ground polenta)

I like cornmeal because it does give a light crunchiness to the crust and also

 because it looks so very pretty! 

It doesn’t matter if you haven’t got any, just use flour.

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See, a good dusting of whatever you are using and then wrap it

lightly in the tea towel

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Then just leave it for two hours to finish rising gently.

After one and a half hours, turn your oven on to just over 200 degrees C/ 392 degrees F

and put in your lidded casserole. You need a lid because it traps the steam

and helps turn the crust into the most delicious chewy gorgeousness…

and you need to get your pot hot. Very hot.

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Then, using oven gloves, (that pot will sizzle your fingers otherwise) get the pot out of the oven

and take the lid off…..then chuck in the dough.

See?

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Still no kneading. Give the casserole a shake to settle the dough,

then put the lid back on and put it in the oven for 30 minutes.

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After half an hour, take the lid off and just look at that……

Then, back in the oven to finish off and get brown.

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And there you have it. Get it out of the oven  and leave it to cool.

I know that is hard because it really does smell gorgeous but

cooling is essential. 

That truly is the most delicious bread – all you have to do is give it time to make

itself. Even a one armed cook could make that.

Well, if a one armed cook had someone to get the pot out of the oven, that is.