Foccacia

Today was the big day for baking with my new toy. The main objective was to try out foccacia and I selected the basic foccacia recipe from Carol Field's book on Foccacia. I used Gold Medal Unbleached AP Flour. It is a waste of charcoal to fire up the oven just to make bread. We decided to cook lunch with the oven. My wife decided on a lemon garlic recipe from Williams' Sonoma Essentials of Roasting which I had borrowed from the library the day before. After sending my daughter for her classes, it was a mad rush to the supermarket to get all the required ingredients. By the time I came back, I was faced with the task of setting up the fire, preparing the dough and the topping. However, this had to wait because breakfast must come first!!

After my daily dose of newspaper and coffee was sated, I swung into action by starting the fire in a flower pot outside the house. This was the only time where smoke is generated from the firestarter which contains wax. After transferring the smouldering charcoal into the oven, I plied on some more and started fanning the oven like a satay-man. I used an old aluminum tray, fanning the oven in a vertical motion which looks as if I am offering incense from the side view. My wife and I thought that the oven made our house look like a temple and now with my fanning action, I certainly look like I was worshipping a deity.

I had read from Hamelman that the ancient Romans worshiped Fornax, the goddess of the hearth or fireplace. (If you look up Wikipedia, Fornax was the goddess of bread and baking). It is interesting that bread is inextricably linked to life. The oven is linked to fertility and today we have phrases like 'a bun in the oven' for example. Even in anatomy of the womb, parts of it is named Fornix which is from the Goddess of the Hearth again.

After the fire was big enough, I pushed out the coals to the the back of the oven in a semi-circular arc. The foccacia was topped with my favorite laksa pesto and bell peppers. I used the 3 terracotta roasters that came with the oven and made the mistake of putting all 3 into the oven at the same time. I faced some difficulty adjusting their placement inside the oven and as a result, some parts of the breads were burnt at the bottom. In retrospect, I should not have baked such a large quantity.

The chicken could have been better had it been marinaded a little longer. The roasted tomatoes with Sumac was delightful. I was introduced to this dish when I was invited to lunch at my friend's house. It was a spice that I have not heard of before so I was very happy to learn something new that day.

Today's bake showed that I have a long way to go before I can orchestrate the kind of cooking session that my friend executed. There are so many factors to watch out for. Next time, I'd definitely have to be more diligent in my planning.

Animal magnet

This is a little off topic from my usual theme but I was delighted by the emerging of a large number of Painted Jezebel butterflies on a Wrightia Religiosa(Shui Mei) bush in front of my house. This is the latest in a string of wonderful visits by some unusual guests. They seem to want to share in my little abode of peace. For the last couple of weeks, that bush was invaded by an army of hairy caterpillars. They disappeared suddenly but one Saturday while pruning the bush, I saw a huge number of chrysalises on the underside of the leaves. This morning they emerged eventually just after I returned from breakfast with my wife. The burst of color was so delightful to watch. I was glad that I had left them alone.

One week after I moved in many years ago, a cat gave birth to a litter of kittens in my garden. They were inconspicuously hidden under some shrubs and nobody would have known of their existence had they not mewed when their mother was not around. Although I grew up in a countryside setting, I had never looked after a pet directly. In those days, there was no shortage of wildlife and in the family compound, there was a talking mynah, parakeets and even a monkey from goodness knows where. Not knowing what to do with the cats, I called the SPCA.

My neighbor's runaway pets also had a penchant of ending up in my house too. I had a Chinchilla hiding under my Christmas tree once. The Chinchilla even dropped me a few black pellets as a Christmas present. This was followed by a visit by her white mouse and rabbit.

Even though my house is not at the edge of any forest, I had a visit from an Iguana in my backyard. I was not there to greet him as I was at work. However, my wife came face to face with him while hanging out the clothes to dry in the backyard. I had to do some homework that evening to seal up the backyard grating to prevent him from getting trapped in my backyard.

The most memorable visit must be from a pair of Olive-backed Sunbirds who built their nest right in front of my sliding door. For the next couple of months, my sliding door stayed shut as I did not want to be an inconsiderate neighbor. I tried my best to respect their privacy. I guess nobody likes to have busybodies peering in while passing by. The wife finally laid an egg which hatched eventually. From then on, dad and mum were busy flying in and out feeding and cleaning up baby. When I had to change my babies' diapers, I had hands but for these bird parents, clearing up after baby involved baby raising its rear to the nest opening. Daddy bird, perched at the entrance, grabbed the white dollop of poo in its beak and proceeded to the nearest tree to wipe off on a twig. It was just fascinating.

A new toy

Do dreams come true in real life? Perhaps only the Divine knows the answer and sometimes they do come true. Unfortunately for most of us, we do not know what is really good for us. I was told that if the Divine gave us everything we wished for, there would be an excess of firemen, bus-drivers or any occupation that a kid think is 'cool'.

Ever since I started baking, I have always dreamt of doing it the traditional way in a wood fired oven. After reading Dan Wing and Kiko Denzer, the idea of baking in a wood fired oven was so enticing that I even toyed with the idea of flying to Australia to take a course in baking bread in wood fired ovens just for the experience. However, this remained a dream with my limited resources.

One day, out of the blue, I received an email from a fellow baker who bake breads out of a wood fired beehive oven. Needless to say, I accepted the invitation to see the oven in action without hesitation. The foccacias and bread that came out from the oven was exceptional. It was the kind of bread that I'd have loved to bake and eat. I was amazed by my friend's passion in baking bread and culinary talents which exceeded mine in all counts.

My friend told me that there was still one more oven left sitting in the warehouse. After almost half a year later, the oven is finally sitting in my front yard. The months were spent on indecision, procrastination and anxiety about whether the oven will survive the move. Finally, I opted for the lowest cost solution in siting and housing my oven. Instead of getting a contractor to do up a lean-to extension in my backyard, I opted for a wrought iron stand and a parasol. I will be fabricating an aluminum cover to keep the oven out of the rain. The canvass cover that came with the oven was clearly insufficient for our climate.

This weekend, I finally got to fire up the oven. This was neccessary to season the oven and drive out the moisture in the walls. I got a lot of advice from my kindly friend. The week before, I went down to Temple Street and picked up an ash scraper, a pair of charcoal tongs, a brush for clearing the ash. It was exciting firing up the oven. My wife took the opportunity to pop in chicken to roast since she was in the process of preparing lunch. I couldn't wait for next week to bake some foccacias and pizzas.

Flour Test - Shipton Mills Bread Flour

I was given a bag of Shipton Mills bread flour recently. It was a gift I appreciated greatly. Although it is 'just a bag of flour' you may say, it was certainly no ordinary bag of flour. Perhaps, more important than the exclusivity of the product, it is the token of the friendship it represents that mattered even more to me.

It was not the first time that I had tried Shipton mills flour. Another friend had given me a bag of Shipton mills wholewheat flour before but at that time, I did not have much luck with it. It was never documented because so many things went wrong that time, including a disaster with the camera.

Now that I have a chance to play with the Shipton mills flour again, I did the test with great reverance. The flour that I was given the last time was hand carried all the way from the UK. Even if this flour had been available in Singapore, I'd have to contemplate three times before I part with my limited 'dough'. My friend mentioned in passing that it was $18 a bag and that's a little too steep for me.

Using my standard test recipe for a white loaf, the flour weight was 40oz with 70% hydration. I used my lazy baker process for this test as I was expecting a plumber to relocate a pipe in the garden. The yeast used was only 1 teaspoon. Salt was 2%. The dough sat for about 12 hours in the fridge and this morning, it was given 2 folds before it was baked. During the folding, I noticed that the extensibility of the dough was markedly different from my regular flour.

The bread was baked for around 40 mins. The oven spring was outstanding and when I took them out from the oven, the crust crakled. After it had cooled, I ate a slice with butter and my conclusion is that it really is a great flour. The aroma was what I love in this kind of bread. I guess taste is something very personal and it is inevitable that different people have different tastes. However, I couldn't help feeling that those who prefer the sweet soft breads are missing out on something really good.

My verdict? The shipton mills flour is great and I'd surely use it more regularly if I had the extra money. For those who can afford it, it is worth every penny. After all, Dan Lepard and Linda Collister couldn't be wrong.

Blood Orange Marmalage

I was at Fairprice finest last Friday and spotted some Blood Oranges. They were prepacked in net bags and there were bruises on some of them in each bag. When I got home, I realised that they were more damaged than I had thought. Rather than eating them fresh, I selected the good ones to make some marmalade.

The skin of Blood Oranges is rather soft and I found the flavor of the Orange itself to be more intense. It was an ideal candidate for making marmalade. The sugar used was only 1/3 the weight of the oranges. After the marmalade has been reduced, a small amount of butter was stirred in. I have to say that I loved it and will probably make more the next time.

I am still contemplating the addition of an Orange Liquer. With such an intense flavor, perhaps I should hold the liquer and enjoy it au naturel.

Potato Bread With Chives
Last week's potato bread tasted so good that I couldn't get enough of it. I made some modifications to Hamelman's recipe. Instead of the 15% wholewheat, I made it with 100% bread flour this time. The percentage of Potatos was the same but I added in a handful of chives and to complement the flavors, a dash of pepper and nutmeg was added. The aroma from the oven when the bread was baking, herald the birth of a winner (as far as my taste in bread is concerned).
I realised that I had made a mistake about the shaping of fendu loaves. A more careful reading of Hamelman made me realise that I had done the shaping wrongly. So this time, I resolved to get it right but failed again because the wood dowel that I had used was far to slim and cut into the dough too much. I'd have to do this shape again and this time with a rolling pin.

Hamelman's Roasted Potato Bread
My wife made a loaf of Potato bread recently and I was very surprised by the depth of flavor of the bread. I decided to try out Hamelman's version of Roasted Potato Bread. The bread is 85% bread flour and 15% wholewheat. Roasted potatoes was 25% of the flour weight. Since this was the first time that I had made this bread, I made a lot of mistakes including a very silly one of not mashing the potatoes sufficiently. Hamelman commented that roasting the potatoes concentrated their flavor. It was also the first time that I had tried the fendu shape and I realise that I did not have a sufficiently long dowel for the job.

A new year, a new beginning

I have finally decided to move from my website to a blog. The free web-hosting provided by Angelfire had given me endless headaches. After 2 years on it, I have finally decided enough is enough. My well meaning friends have always urged me to use a blog format but I guess I must have been a real masochist for punishment. Enduring the shortcomings of free Angelfire is no easy task. I have always thought that beggars cannot be choosers since I am too cheap to pay for web hosting. Well, maybe in the real world but then on the net, beggars can be choosers!!

Here is my first post which was salvaged from a third Angelfire spin-off. I had to do 2 other spin-offs to work around the 20MB storage limit. Starting from my initial website at

http://www.angelfire.com/planet/tomsbread/index.htm, I spun another web at

http://www.angelfire.com/planet/artisanbread/index.htm

Traversing through these 2 websites is complicated enough and it would be downright silly of me to do a third spin-off especially when bandwidth is exruciating limited for free Angelfire webhosting. Publishing the updates was equally daunting. Finally tonight, after wasting 2 hours trying to upload some updates, I decided to quit Angelfire and start with a blog format. I will maintain the original 2 sites as there are some useful links and information for people to start baking bread.

I had been inspired to do a website after learning so much from fellow bakers in the US. Their websites gave me so much inspiration that I felt compelled to try out the breads that they had posted.

So now, a new year, a new beginning. First post: Operation salvage from crippling Angelfire:

Blueberry Tarts
I had some guests today and to entertain them, I made a batch of blueberry tarts to serve them. The tart shells were baked in the morning together with my Cinnamon buns. My wife made the Mascarpone cream cheese filling and they were topped with blueberries. I had to use frozen blueberries sitting in my freezer but they turned out well. These were not very sweet and still had the mild tartness of fresh berries. An apricot glaze completed the assembly. There was even a request for a 'take-away' so what more can I ask for?