Bread of Hampshire

The first loaf of bread in the new home. What a triumph! I thought this recipe was going to fail for a couple of reasons -- adding active dry yeast directly to flour and salt before adding the liquid, thus defying the instructions on the tin -- and yet it didn't. In fact, it was one of the best damn loaves of bread I've ever made. There is no rhyme or reason to this bakery lark.

For those who were worrying about this...

The sourdough starter survived the flight. I decanted a generous cupful into an "airtight" plastic container, wrapped it in a towel, sealed it in a plastic bag, and then wrapped it in PJ's sweaty gym gear and buried it in his suitcase -- I'm not daft. On reaching our hotel, I took it out and discovered that the manufacturer of the airtight container should have been sued under advertising standards legislation, but only the towel was damaged -- and easily binned. It now sits, malevolently, in our hotel bathroom, waiting to be fed and emitting noxious fumes. All will be well.

Pane carasau

I have a lot of kitchen equipment. Maybe too much. After all, who really needs an ice-cream maker, popcorn maker, pasta machine, food processor, mini food processor, blender, mini deep-fat fryer, ravioli accessory, voodoo man knife stand, two teapots, two stove-top coffee machines, a kettle, and many, many pots and pans? And that's not counting the stuff we shipped back a couple of months ago. Whenever we look at houses for sale, the size of the kitchen is of near-primary importance -- anything less than 12'x10' ain't going to cut it.

So, I'm always delighted when I find a recipe that allows me to make extra use of a piece of equipment that I already possess. I spent last week looking through my new World Breads book and came across pane carasau, also known as carta di musica. This simple recipe requires you to roll out the little balls of dough incredibly thinly, never my favorite task -- but in a lightbulb moment, I figured I could use my pasta machine to do it for me. I've seen the pizza makers at our excellent local do something similar, albeit with a much larger machine. Anyway, I gave it a go and bingo! Each ball took less than a minute to roll out to near transparency and then only a few more minutes to cook in the oven. Piles of crispy, rosemary and sea salt crackers for only a few minutes work. Hmm, I wonder if could use the pasta machine for rolling out pastry? That would mean I could bin the rolling pin, freeing up some valuable cupboard space...

Biga is better

Yes, yes: It's another bloody bread-making post. This weekend's labour of loaves? Ciabatta. Yet another laborious, multipart, doughy extravaganza. This time, however, I didn't use sourdough starter or beer as the raising agent, but a biga. This odd confection starts off life as a rather firm, somewhat clumpy blend of flour, water, and yeast.



12 hours in the fridge transforms it into a squidgy, chilly mass, ready to be transformed into the crusty ciabatta we know and love.



First, you pull the biga apart into little clumps, add pasta flour, water, and a touch more yeast, and smoosh it all together. This is a lot of fun -- a bit like making mud pies as a child, but distinctly more fragrant.



Rest, "knead" (as far as you can knead something with the texture of porridge), rest, repeat. Then, I didn't so much shape it, as scrape it off my hands and let it ooze, like malevolent primordial gloop, across the baking sheet.



The final step is to wait, anxiously, as it bakes. At the moment, it has puffed up to quite extraordinary heights -- the long development time and weird kneading process has obviously paid off. And it smells fabulous. I wish blogger had a smellorama function so that you could experience this with me!

And it was well worth the effort -- just look at that crumb! Don't you agree?