Monday 29 April 2013

Ciabatta recipe, easy-peasy.

If I had put together a Bucket List, learning to make ciabatta would have featured for me.
I gave it a go a few times and failed miserably. I resigned myself to never getting the knack of making.
Then I watched Paul Hollywood's series on bread on BBC2, bought the book and decided to give it a a go.
 

 The recipe is easy to follow but I will say me it took me until my fourth attempt before I was really happy with the result and I did watch the episode again on iplayer.
 
 
 I found that making the sponge (flour water and half the yeast) before I go to bed, when I come to make the bread the following morning it is really nicely fermented and ready to go.
 
 
I put in the rest of the water, salt, sponge, flour and then lastly the yeast, in that order.

 
Combine on the lowest setting then increase to the next setting and then I mixed on number 3 for the last 7 minutes (15 mins in total)

 
The mistake I made was to put it in too big a box to prove.  
 

In the 2 hours it is left to prove, with the right size box, it will reach right to the top and when you slowly tip it out it won't flop as much.
 

 
Next on my Bucket List would be to keep a sourdough starter going and make a really good sourdough.
Watch this space.....
 
x
 

Tuesday 23 April 2013

Discovering the joys of crochet

For 40th Birthday, some lovely friends bought me a place on a crochet class.
I have never been able to crochet before but always longed to and had several failed attempts at teaching myself.
The lessons were invaluable, it was like something just clicked and I got it.
Now I've started, there really is no stopping me.
I've done blankets for the kids and I'm now working on one for me and Dave.
 
 
I started out making granny squares, not really sure where I was going with it.
 

 
Then I figured out how to join the squares.
 
 
 
Then I bordered the block of squares and joined together one row of 6 blocks.
 
 
I completed another row and joined the two together.
 
A work in progress......
 
I am hooked (pun intended).
 
x