Thursday, October 23, 2014

PS Cafe at Dempsey

A birthday lunch  
Great food and great ambience. 

We had,
- tomato soup with sheep feta cheese and pesto. 
- turkey cranberry sandwich that comes with a green salad with asparagus and beans. 
- BBQ chicken salad with cous cous in orange vinaigrette, wolf berries, chicory veg, kale
- double chocolate cake. 















Monday, October 6, 2014

Buttery sourdough rolls


Success at first try!
They were fluffy to boot. 

Recipe from King Arthur Flour makes good use of "unfed starter". 








Sunday, October 5, 2014

Raspberry and white chocolate natural yeast bread

Success! My first wild yeast bread!





Making the sponge early in the morning at 8am:
L

After proofing in fridge for 7hrs. Folded in thirds and repeated :

After second proof for 3hrs at room temperature :

Into the oven :

How it looks once cooled down :

Texture improved by the next morning :


100g refreshed starter
100ml water
50ml water
10g sugar
25g veg oil (I prefer lesser than this)
5g salt
250g bread flour 

3/4 punnet of fresh raspberries
30g white chocolate

Mix wet ingredients, starter and flour. It will be sticky. Add raspberries and white chocolate chips and mix. Cover and let proof for 2-3 hrs at room temperature. Then cover and place into fridge for 7-10hrs. Remove from fridge and fold the dough into thirds, repeat thirds. Then shape and stretch sides of dough to form a ball to create surface tension. Then elongate it and place into a proofing basket and cover and proof for 2-3 hrs at room temperature. 

Preheat oven. 
Bake 220 degree Celsius for 15 min then lower temperature to 180 degree Celsius for 20 min till crust is golden brown. Let cool to room temperature before slicing. 







Wednesday, October 1, 2014

Natural starter - raisin yeast water

Sterilised jar 
Boiled then cooled down water, 250ml
Raisins, 100g

Every day, open the lid to let in air then close it and shake gently. 

Depending on room temperature, the yeast water should be ready in 3-7 days. 



Day 0

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3
Some fizz ...

Day 4

End of Day 5

Preparing the starter - 

Feed 1 : 
100g strained raisin yeast water
100g bread flour 

In 3 hrs

In another 4.5 hrs 

Once the mix has doubled or tripled in volume (at room temperature), you can start to do feed 2.

Feed 2 :
100g of the starter (discard the rest)
100ml water
100g bread flour
2g salt (I use slightly less)

Mix well and keep at room temperature till the starter doubles or triples in volume. And you can go for third feed. 

Feed 3:
Same steps as feed 2
Once the starter doubles or triples in volume, you can use 100g of it for baking   Most recipes using natural starters use 100g starter. 
Keep 100g of the remaining starter to sustain for future bakes. Same steps as feed 2. After two hrs or so (about double), you can keep in the fridge and feed it every week using the steps at feed 2. When you need to bake, you need to refresh it (feed it) and keep at room temperature to double/ triple it. 






Benefits of natural yeast

Caleb warnock blog

Saturday, September 27, 2014

YouTube - Taiwan bread champ

Yummy. His breads look v nice. Like those from duke bakery. 😍 http://youtu.be/V1BZk1ZSngU 面包冠军出少年, 养天然酵母,老面酿香气