White Chia Sourdough

White Chia Sourdough

This recipe is inspired by Shao-Ping's Pain au Levain with Chia Seeds from the Sourdough Companion website. The recipe is the same, except I used my white sourdough starter.

It turned out wonderfully. Shao-Ping is very good at describing the process.

You may be able to tell...I cut the bread while it was warm...I just could not wait! I had two other loaves so I felt I could be naughty and slice a nice thick hot bit, even though it was a tiny bit sticky still I love hot bread.

Artichokes from Oxley Downs

Grilled Artichokes

Cut the tops off the artichokes about 1/2 way down.

These pictures should do most of the explaining.

Peel off the hard outer leaves till the inner core is reached (see below).

Rub with lemon and then soak in a bowl with lemon juice added.

Simmer in garlic and chicken or vegetable stock that comes up their sides halfway.

The artichokes should be ready once the stock is completely evapourated. Serve as a side with grains and other vegetables and BBQ meats.

Chicken Carbonara (w/ Spinach and Garlic Fettucini)

Chicken Carbonara w/ Spinach and Garlic Fettucini

Ingredients

1 tbsp olive oil

1 clove garlic, crushed

1 chicken breast diced into 2cm chunks

Mulga smoked bacon, 2 x 0.5cm slices, cut into 1x3cm strips

Proscuitto 2 x 0.5 cm slices, cut into 0.2x1cm strips

2 handfuls button mushrooms, sliced

2 large fresh free range farm eggs, whisked briefly

handful of pecorino pepato finely grated

1/2 cup duralina (durum wheat semolina flour)

1/2 cup tipo '00' flour

1 fresh free range farm egg

Cooked baby spinach leaves, squeezed of juices into a ball the size of an egg.

1 clove garlic, crushed

optional: (+ - 1 egg yolk)

Method

To make the pasta combine the duralina, tipo flour, 1 whole egg, spinach and garlic in a food processor and pulse till crumbs form. Add a little more flour if it is too sticky. Add the extra egg yolk if it is too dry.

Knead briefly into a ball. It should be a firm, mouldable consistency.

Geoff and his pet pasta:

Wrap in plastic and place in fridge for at least 20 minutes. Pour yourself a nice drink, Semillion was our choice.

Meanwhile prepare the other ingredients.

Remove the dough from the fridge. Secure the Pasta Maker and roll out the dough working it through the first setting a few times while repeatedly folding the dough onto itself to create a silky consistency.

Continue to the 7th setting (2 down from the thinnest).

Cut the fettucini yourself with a knife by rolling up the sheet or pass through a fettucini cutter.

Lovely green pasta.
Toss with flour on the bench and set aside.

Heat the olive oil in a pan and saute the garlic and chicken with some salt and pepper. Once browned, add the bacon and proscuitto and cook for 5 minutes. Add the mushrooms and cook till browned.

Bring a pot of water to the boil and salt generously. Add the pasta and stir immediately to stop sticking.

Cook for 5-8 minutes. Dan put in his token 5 minutes of assistance!

Remove with tongs and add to the saute pan. take the pan off the heat and add the two whole eggs. Stir through to cover the pasta. Do not stir too vigorously as the eggs will scramble. This is still nice though, dare I say it.

Add more pepper to taste and serve with a fine grating of pecorino pepato.

Zesty Citrus, Almond & Hazelnut Cake

Zesty Citrus, Almond and Hazelnut Cake

This is a lovely cake with no butter or milk so its lactose free. Its also really really easy to make, you cant really go wrong with it. I made this with my Mum, Pam, for her birthday and we served it with yoghurt because it just lended itself to that sourish flavour. It is actually now my Mum's and my favourite cake! We might add some cinnamon or cardamom next time though because we love warm spices.

Ingredients:

2 oranges

6 eggs

250g caster sugar

250g almond meal

100g hazelnut meal

1tsp baking powder

Extra caster sugar for dusting before baking

Icing sugar for dusting after baking

Margarine or oil spray (for greasing the pan)

Method:

Wash oranges and place unpeeled, in a pot of boiling water for 2 hours. Drain the water and allow the oranges to cool completely. This can be done ahead of time.

Preheat oven to 190°C.

Break 6 eggs into a mixing bowl or blender. Add caster sugar and beat till light and airy.

Place the two oranges into the egg mix. Break up the oranges and then blend together to a smooth consistency. Blend in the baking powder, lemon zest, almond and hazelnut meal.

Grease a 20 cm silicone baking pan with margarine (or vegetable oil spray) and dust with caster sugar.

Pour batter into the pan and sprinkle caster sugar on top and bake for 1 hour to an hour and a half or until the top is golden brown.

Dust with icing sugar and slivered almonds to serve.

Wholewheat Sourdough

Wholewheat Sourdough

Ingredients (by weight):

210g white sourdough starter 100% hydration

100g Strong Bread Flour

220g Durum wholewheat flour (I used Bellata Gold)

10g natural honey (no additives)

8.2g fine salt

180g water

Method:

Get a bowl or container that will hold more than double the volume of the dough mix.

I made a big ceramic bread bowl to mix my bread in which works well.

Mix all ingredients except the salt and turn out onto a floured bench.

Stretch and Fold or Knead for 5 minutes to bring the dough together.

Autolyse for 20 minutes.

Stretch and fold or knead for 10 minutes.

Note: there appears to be different theories around kneading for bread making, and this has to do with the science of gluten formation. There is an interesting experiment on white sourdough here. I say test out different methods and see what works for you. Bread is a personal thing I think! I like to knead my bread a little, at least to make sure all ingredients are incorporated (eg. seeds, fruit), and it is also really relaxing for me. The higher hydration doughs, such as Ciabatta, are better treated with the stretch and fold technique, and that works well and doesnt allow too much extra flour to be incorporated.

Once the dough is proved, a window can be seen through the dough when gently stretched.

Separate the dough into three portions.

For each portion, press out to a rectangle, fold 1/3 towards the centre and the other third over the top.

Turn the dough so the seam faces you and take the top two corners and fold IN and DOWN towards you.

Then, fold the round part down in the same direction.

Take the whole rounded top part and roll towards you to seal the seam of the bottom fo the batard together.

Use your common sense with this. We need to seal the seam and roll a nice loaf without losing too much air in the dough.

Finished batards - make them your own, they dont need to be perfect.

Find the shape you like and go with that. There is a great video of shaping doughs here.

Once shaped, cover with a plastic bag and place in the fridge overnight to ferment.

In the morning (8-12 hours later), remove the loaves from the fridge and let warm up in an environment that is ideally 25-27 degrees C and 70-85% humidity. To create this environment you could turn your oven on for a bit, then turn it off, then put a bowl of boiling water inside to create higher humidity; then place the loaves on an oven shelf. Then preheat the oven to highest temperature.

Once proved, the loaves should bounce back when pressed with a fingertip. Slash the loaves and put into the oven, spraying with water and adding some icecubes to trays in the bottom to create some steam.

Bake for 20 minutes then turn the loaves and bake for a further 10 minutes or until the bottom on the loaves soudn hollow when tapped. Do not exceed 40 minutes of baking or the loaves will be like rocks.

Results:
My loaves were nice, but under-proved. I think it was the cold temperature in the house. I left them for four hours and they were coming back after pressing a finger in but a small indent still remained. I have since made some White Sourdough where I had a warmer room (warmer day) and they rose really well once out of the fridge, though they were made differently with white flour.

My wholewheat bread was really nice on the first day but it was quite dense. I need to do a bit more researching and practicing so I can work with wholewheat flour and get the results I want. What I want is crunchy crust and moist crumb with more holes in it (more gas from proving and yeast metabolising). So, I want lighter, not too dense.

However....! They were wonderful toasted with dips for the simple fact that they didnt have large holes and thus their density was perfect as a kind of bagel-crisp. I would make them again for this reason because they are chewy and sour and earthy.

Strawbs

I found these in the patch by the admin building here. There were so many rotting away I decided to pick a whole frisbee load and eat them like my Nana used to - dusted with caster sugar!

Fig and Raisin Spiced Sourdough

Fig and Raisin Spiced Sourdough

Ingredients

1/2 the quantity of the Wholewheat Sourdough Dough

200g Figs and Raisins (or sultanas)

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1/4 tsp cardamom

Semolina flour for dusting

Method:

Soak fruit in boiling water until needed (at least 30 min)

Once you have kneaded and proved the sourdough dough till you can make a window, fold in the fruit.

Prove for 1 hour covered in a warm (25degC) place.

Place pizza or baking stone in oven.

Preheat oven to highest temperature (at least 250 degrees C)

Divide the dough and shape into two rounds.

Prove for approx 20-30 minutes until ready.

The loaves are proved when they bounce back slowly after a finger is pressed into them.

Score the loaves and slide onto baking stone in oven, spraying oven with water and dropping ice cubes into tray in the bottom of the oven.

Bake for 15 minutes then turn loaves and bake for another 10-15 minutes.

The loaves should sound hollow when tapped underneath.

I have been having this every morning with a cup of tea. It's really nice and chewy, which is a distinctive sourdough quality, but also because of the figs that have caramelised near the edges.

Yum!