Baking bread

After letting it all simmer for some time, I now made a decision to change the blog name and url instead of getting
into a potentially costly legal fight.

I have been sitting here all morning thinking up possible titles.

Whenever I come up with something brilliant, I type it into google, and then discover that somebody else thought
of it first. Finally I started using really daft names, and even those are taken...

Obviously a bit more simmering is needed.

But all of this has nothing to do with what I wanted to tell you about.

On Saturday, I went to a bread making workshop. Seven girlfriends, a chef from Chicago on holiday in Nam, and a
couple of bottles of champagne.

We learned to use pizza dough like a frisbee.
We also learned to kneed the dough until it is as soft as a babies' bottom.
We made sourdough starter and baked herb focaccia and ate far too much of the most delicious pizza.


All in all, it was a lot of fun!

Here is the recipe for the sourdough bread:


First of all, you will have to make a starter by mixing a cup of water, a cup of flour and some dry yeast (half a packet).
Let it stand for a day or two but don't close it airtight, as it apparently might explode (if you are the rebellious type,
please let me know if it really explodes, very curious...)

You can keep this starter alive until all eternity. All you have to do is feed it once a week. To do that, you take out
about half of it and throw it away (or bake with it). Then you add a quarter of flour and a quarter of water.

To make the bread, you will need:

750 g (6 cups) white flour
425 g (1.8 cups) of water
150 g (this one you will have to weigh, as the volume changes depending how old the starter is) sourdough starter
15 g (1 tablespoon) salt

Pour the starter into a large mixing bowl
Add the water and stir until integrated
Mix in half the flour
Sprinkle some flour over your mix and only then add the salt (if you put the salt in first, it might kill the yeast)
Add the rest of the flour and mix
Kneed the dough, then let it rest for 15-20 minutes
Kneed the dough for 5 to 10 minutes until soft as a babies' bottom
Cut in half and shape into two loaves
Allow to bench rest until doubled in size, then cut the top three times in one direction and twice in the other
Preheat oven to 250°C (482° Fahrenheit) and bake for about 30 minutes (until nicely brown and until you can hear a
hollow sound when knocking the bread)

Enjoy!

I will give you the (delicious) herb focaccia recipe in a different post.


A beautiful day to you :-).




Lots of love,

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