Bread

Brought a jar of olives will make some sort of olive bread with it. Not sure if I’m going to do current recipe and add in olives, or do the specific olive bread recipe I’ve got somewhere..

Demi baguettes out of the oven at 12:45 and half of the gone already: ‘nuff said.

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Used 1% diastasic malt; not sure whether it made much difference in a sourdough, but it looks good. Need to work on my shaping - it's got good rise in the middle, but the ends seem to have spread outwards a bit. Good crumb, though. Still not 100% convinced by the iron cloche - it gives good colour, but not as thick and crusty a result as in a cast iron casserole. Still early days though - need more practice.

Also, has anyone found 1kg round cane bannetons in stock anywhere? Want to see if I get better results from a boule than from my wonky batards.

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Olive and thyme bread fresh out the oven

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Freecycle: Cotswold Eight Grain Flour. I was sent this by mistake and don't have space to store five bags of flour I'm unlikely to get through too quickly. I'll hold on to one bag so I have four to give away. I'm in East Dulwich, SE22.
https://www.fwpmatthews.co.uk/product/cotswold-eight-grain-flour/

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White with added seeds and a bit of oat porridge. Very slap dash, forgot about it basically and let it prove longer than planned. Doesn't seem to have done any harm.

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Yes please mate, will PM

Made a loaf with 50/50 white and dark rye, a fistful of chopped rye and diastatic malt last night. 65% hydration.

Holy freaking fuck this is the tastiest bread I have ever made.

Did a no-knead bread yesterday. These are great for the amount of effort involved. Could have done with a minute or two more cooking I think.

Olive and thyme bread tastes nice, closer to focaccia than I was expecting. Left the salt from the recipe out as I used the brine from the jarred olives as the water in the recipe.
Crumb is much softer than I was expecting, and when you get the salty hit of a bit of olive, it’s good.
Going to toast with some scrambled eggs as a late breakfast, early lunch.

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Anyone got any tips for baking in non-fan ovens? I moved house recently, and have been cooking sourdough in a cast iron pot at 250°C. This worked well in a fan oven, but in a non fan oven the bottom tends to burn and the top crust is not fully done.

You could maybe put a cold pizza stone underneath the base, after you open the pot, to absorb excess heat?

We don't have a fan oven either, and I wish we'd spent the extra 30 quid to have one. Raising the pot up a bit so that it's closer to the top of the oven helps, also water in the bottom of the oven helps.

Perversely- we have an old Le Creuset Dutch Oven thing, and a fan oven- but I don't rate the fan over the non-fan setting.
In fact- all my baking is done non-fan. You occasionally (when not in DO) need to rotate things mid way or at 1/4 time intervals, but I feel my results are more consistent.
Needs a longer pre-heat than you think, though.

I've done this a few times and it works quite well

I bake my bread on the non-fan setting. With the fan it dries out too fast and reduces oven spring (I don't use a Dutch oven generally). Stone and oven tray are preheated in fan setting then oven switched to lower heating element only for a bit. Bread onto stone and water into tray at the bottom.

First loaf in our new Dutch oven, 100% spelt so I believe I should be happy with the spring I got. Having an oval banneton and a round pan isn't great, might have to get a round one too.

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Decided to branch out and went for a fig and walnut sourdough. Very happy with the results. (Done in Dutch oven in a non-fan assisted oven - lid taken off halfway through and moved the shelf up.)

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Oh baby! Want want want.

Might have to fire out a fruit and nut sourdough this weekend.

Have just ordered some dark rye and a load of seeds. Planning to try some mixes and some proper dense Danish/German styles. Looking forward to it even more reading this.

Ugly bread but tastes good. Always without fail sticks to the banneton. Any suggestions?

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Always without fail sticks to the banneton. Any suggestions?

• Copious cornflour or rice flour in the banneton.
• Reduce the hydration level in the dough.
• Create strong surface tension in the doughball before placing into the banneton, by using shaping techniques.

If you don't mind losing the floured lines the banneton gives it, I'd suggest lining the banneton with a floured (low gluten / gluten free flour, so rye or rice) tea towel. If you're retarding in the fridge it's far more likely to stick so I would definitely use a tea towel

After a few disappointing sourdoughs went back to yeast and got this. Hard justify the faff of sourdough tbh

Yeast 4 Lyf