Sunday 6 May 2012

Old World Rye Bread

D has been on a bread-baking kick the last few weeks, since he discovered that Sainsbury's no longer seemed to be selling the organic wholemeal loaf that he likes.

I thought I would take advantage of his current enthusiasm for bread making and get him to bake a bread recipe that I had bookmarked a while ago but not got around to baking yet. This was the Old World Rye Bread recipe from Dolores Casella's A World of Breads, which I came across on Natalia's blog
Gatti, Fili e Farina.
The recipe was also blogged about on the One Perfect Bite blog.

In the photos the bread looked like a lovely black loaf, similar to the Pumpernickel Bread from The Good Cook: Breads which I had made years ago, but without the fuss of having to boil potatoes and prepare polenta.

We made a few minor changes to the recipe:

D used 2 teaspoons of active dried yeast intead of 2 Tablespoons,
1 Tablespoon of caraway seeds instead of 2 Tablespoons,
Just slightly more than 1 teaspoon of salt instead of 2 teaspoons,
and white bread flour.

He used American Grandma's molasses because we happened to have some on hand. In the absence of American molasses I would probably use a 50:50 mixture of black treacle and golden syrup.

The result was a loaf with a wonderful rich dark brown color and a great flavour, which we will definitely make again.


May Bank Holiday Weekend 2012

Bank holiday weekends have a reputation for being washouts over here. We get few enough sunny days, but it's almost like you can bet that the weather isn't going to cooperate when you have a long weekend.

This one is no exception, but not only is it grey, it's freezing cold, with a maximum around 9, and the weather forecasters yesterday saying that it had been warmer on Christmas Day!

I told people last week that we were planning to have our bank holiday picnic/barbecue indoors. I have been trying to conjure up the image of blue skies and warmer climes by playing my Compagnie Creole tape that I bought when I was in Paris in the '80s.

Tuesday 24 April 2012

Sour 'Green Apple'

I bought this sour green fruit in the Whitechapel Market several weeks ago. I don't know what it is, but it looks like a large green apple with a thick stem, and has a very sour lemony taste when cooked.
From left: Sicilian blood orange, small green citron, unidentified sour green fruit.

Indian Sweets from Brick Lane

Clockwise from top left: almond barfi, plain laddoo, chumchum.

Thursday 15 March 2012

Glorious Spring Sunshine

Came out of yoga class this morning to find that there was this glorious spring sunshine and blue skies. Need to 'carpe diem', get out there and take advantage of the sunshine while it lasts.

By the way, today is the Ides of March.