Easy and cheap - Sausage rolls with wholegrain mustard

(makes 12  parcels)

Ingredients:

400g (or 2 mugs) strong white flour

1/2 tsp salt

250ml (or 2/3rds mug) lukewarm water

1 rounded teaspoon fresh yeast

Splash of olive oil (optional)

Plus:

6 vegan sausages (Linda Mac's or Fry's)
Wholegrain mustard

Method:

1. Place the flour and salt into a mixing bowl. Measure the water and stir in the fresh yeast. Pour in the yeast liquid and add the olive oil if using. 

2. Have a little water to hand to add if necessary. Remember, it is better for your dough to be wetter (slack) rather than drier (tight). Holding the bowl with one hand begin to mix by stirring the ingredients together with your fingers. Check how the dough feels as you mix – it should stay soft and squidgy – and add more flour or water as needed. When all the flour has been mixed in, wipe the bowl around with the dough, turn it out onto the worktop and begin to knead. 

3. Knead by flattening the dough out, folding it over and flattening it again. Knead until the dough becomes smooth – and then stop before you get fed up!

4. When you are ready to proceed, take the dough out of the mixing bowl and place it on your worktop. This time, don't 'knock the dough back'! Just divide the dough into 12 pieces. 

5. Divide the dough into 12 pieces and each sausage in two. Flatten a piece of dough down with the heel of your hand into an oval shape. Turn it over to loosen it from the worktop and place a smear of mustard along the middle, then place the halved sausage over the mustard. Form a parcel by bringing the ends of the oval over each end of the sausage. Now bring the top and bottom of the oval over to meet each other. Pinch these two sides together and roll the parcel gently between the palms of your hands. Place on a lined oven tray with the join underneath. 

6. Cover and leave to prove until they have grown appreciably in size. Bake at 220C, 425F or gas mark 7, for about 15 minutes.

ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT SOURDOUGH: STARTER; SPONGE - AND LOAF

Sourdough May 2013

Sourdough Starter:

Mix 100g of warm water and 100g of flour* in a jar with a loose lid. Keep, covered, on your worktop.

*My grandchildren and I have proved to my satisfaction that a starter can be made from pretty much any flour. However, organic wholemeal is my preference - and the inclusion of rye flour is always good.

Feed the Starter (every 24 or 48 hours): 

First feeding - simply add 100g each, flour and water and mix in. 
Second and subsequent feedings - remove half (known as the discard)* and then add another 100g of flour and water. Within three or four days (it can take longer, a week or more, and it can happen more quickly) you should start getting lots of bubbles throughout, and a pleasant sour or beery smell. The starter may start to puff up, too. This is good. Here's the gist: When your starter develops a bubbly froth, it is done. You have succeeded. If this sounds brain-dead simple, that's because it is. 

*What to do with the 'discard'.

Refrigerate the Starter:

Keep the starter in your fridge, with a lid on it. Allow a little breathing space in the lid. 

Once the starter is chilled, it needs to be fed only once a week. 

Hooch.  Aside from weekly feeding, the only other thing you need to worry about is hooch. Hooch is a layer of watery liquid (often dark) that contains alchohol. It smells a bit like beer, because it is a bit like beer - but don't drink it! Hooch builds up in your starter, especially in the fridge. Just stir it back in. It doesn't hurt anything. 

(The following has been contributed by my friend Dennis, who's really taken to the sourdough method. Thanks, Dennis!)

The sponge and loaf:
The following recipe I’ve tweaked from Hugh Fernley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage Every Day.  We want fresh bread at lunch time, so this is what I do most days.

1.  First thing in the morning refresh starter, leave on side.

2.  After a couple of hours - mix 100gs active starter, 250gs of bread flour (white, brown, whatever) and 275gs water.  Cover, leave on the side.

3. At some time in the evening, add about 1 tbs of oil, olive, rapeseed, whatever, stir in, add 300g bread flour and about 5g of fine salt and mix together.

4.  Turn the dough out onto an oiled surface, knead with oiled hands, form into a ball.  Place in a lightly oiled bowl ensuring dough has oil all over it.  If you cover with a plastic bag it shouldn’t stick, leave on the side overnight..

5.  First thing the following morning, knock back, fold and shape.  Prove in a proving basket or oiled loaf tin, cover, let it rise for 1.5 to 3 hours.  Mine usually takes about 2 hours.

6.  Heat oven to 250C if possible.  Preheat a baking tray if you have one, dust it with flour, place loaf on it - bake for 15 minutes, turn oven down to 200C for about 30 minutes but do check, some ovens run hotter.

Notes.

‘Precision’ is not my middle name.  If, pouring the 100gms starter into the bowl, 120gms goes in, I just carry on, once it was 150.  I adopt the same approach to everything else.

At 4 above, you can tip dough onto oiled surface, tidy it into a mound and place an upturned bowl over it.  Leave for 30 to 60 minutes (depending what I’m watching) then knead as long as you can/want with oiled hands.

Also, at 5 above when I tip out, I do a baker’s fold - Paul will explain - cover with bowl upside down and leave for ten minutes, carry on with shaping etc.

We want bread for sandwiches so most of the time I make a tin loaf.  In that case the dough is shaped in an oiled and floured tin, which goes into the hot oven.  That makes it easy.

To shape in a basket, put the dough in with the fold on top in order to tip out onto a floured hot baking tray and into the oven.

You can change the timings to suit yourself; make the sponge one evening, in the morning turn into dough, cover, leave on the side all day, shape later and bake.

The process for sourdough is starter; sponge; dough; baked bread.  Once I refreshed a starter around 4pm, made sponge around 6pm and into a dough about 9pm and baked the following morning.  The experts wouldn’t approve but it made edible bread.

Unfortunately you can’t rush the final prove.

I use basic sunflower oil for lining bowl, tins and kneading. For the dough mix I tend to use a better olive oil.

A no knead method works - after the dough stage, roughly tidy it up to put in a tin and leave overnight, covered in the fridge.  Following morning, heat oven and when up to temperature put tin in the oven.

Recently I was away for three weeks and my fridge starter refreshed as normal.

Any bread left over is sliced and put in the freezer though sourdough keeps better than yeast breads, I think.

Above all, enjoy yourselves.  Dennis 

Here's one of my forays into sourdough.

PLAIN NAAN BREAD

Ingredients:
200g strong white flour
1/4 tsp salt
50g creamed coconut (grated)
25g black onion seeds
125ml yeast liquid, including 1 tsp fresh yeast
Sesame seeds for sprinkling
Splash of olive oil (optional)

Method:
1. Place the yeast in a measuring jug, add lukewarm water up to 125ml and stir to dissolve.

2. Measure the dry ingredients (including the coconut) and place them in a large mixing bowl with the yeast liquid and oil if using. Have a little water to hand to add if necessary, remember, it is better for your dough to be wetter (slack) rather than drier (tight). Begin to mix by stirring the ingredients together with a table knife. When it gets too stiff for the knife, use one hand to turn the bowl round, whilst the other hand begins to squeeze the mixture together. Make sure the dough stays soft - don’t be afraid to add more water. When all the flour has been mixed in, wipe the bowl around with the dough, turn it out onto the worktop and begin to knead.

3. Knead by stretching the dough out, folding it over, stretching it out and so on and so forth. Do this until it is smooth – but stop before you get fed up!

4. Roll out the dough into a large square. Place it on a baking sheet lined with baking parchment, brush with water and sprinkle with sesame seeds. Leave to double in thickness.

5. Bake at 220C, 425F or gas mark 7 for 10-15 minutes. Check after 7-8 minutes. Turn it over if necessary to ensure the bottom is coloured enough.

Or:
4. Divide into 4 pieces and roll out quite thinly. Place on grill pan and leave to rise appreciably. Brush with oil and sprinkle with sesame seeds before grilling. Keep a close eye on them when grilling because they can swell up and begin to burn if you’re not careful. Turn over after 2 or 3 minutes, brushing them with oil once more.

Notes:
I like the idea of a table naan with everyone tearing off a piece. With individual naans, I don’t bother with a teardrop shape – that comes from sticking the dough to the inside of a tandoori oven, which we don’t have.

A GLUTEN FREE VEGAN LOAF

I ordered some Bob's Red Mill gluten free bread flour from my local Health Food Shop - and was astonished to find it cost £5.99 for 450g! [faints] Won't be buying that again, I'm afraid.

Stiil, I was curious to see how it performed using vegan ingredients. Here's the resulting first attempt:

Made two small loaves

 Good look crumb and a nice rise!

BEGINNERS, START HERE...

Breadmaking is seen as a scary thing for some people, but all my teaching is geared towards removing that fear and showing it to be the simple cooking procedure that it is.

The fact is, that if you mix flour, lukewarm water and yeast together – you cannot stop your bread from rising!

All my recipes follow the same path – and they all follow these rules.

The three simple rules which you should bear in mind when making bread are:

1. Use strong, breadmaking flour – look for the words ‘strong’ or ‘bread’ on the packet. Plain flour will work in an emergency, and a mixture of strong and plain will work fine.

2. Use lukewarm (hand hot) water, and don’t put your dough anywhere too hot. Forget airing cupboards and radiators, the bread will rise on your worktop.

3. Give your bread time to rise after its final shaping and before it goes into the oven. White bread will double in size – a pizza base should look puffy compared to when you rolled it out.

And that’s it!

There’s also a couple of things to bear in mind, but aren’t rules as such:

1. Make sure your dough is soft and squishy – never be afraid to add more water whilst you’re mixing the dough.

2. If you have the slightest doubt whether your bread is done or not, put it back in the oven for a few more minutes. Look for colour on the bottom of your bread.

Yeast: Whatever yeast you’re using – fresh, active dried (comes in a tin) or easyblend (comes in sachets), treat them all the same.

Mix the yeast in the lukewarm water until dissolved, then add it straight into the flour.

As a general rule, use half as much dried yeast as fresh – so if the recipe says a dessertspoon of fresh yeast, use a teaspoon of dried.

But don’t worry too much about the amount of yeast you use: the more yeast you use, the faster your bread will rise; the less you use, the longer it will take.

A bread dough made with 400g (2 mugs) of flour will make a medium-sized loaf, about 8 bread rolls, two or three pizzas or 8 sizzlers (wraps, really) – or any other savoury bread you can think of!

I want to use this blog to demonstrate just how easy and accessible home breadmaking can be (is)! So here are several recipes to start you off.


Here's a seeded wholemeal loaf, a savoury bread (cheese and tomato wraps), and a sweet bread (Chelsea buns). (I'm on YouTube with both of these (link down the side of the blog) last two - but please ignore the 'After 10-minutes, put it in the oven' instruction. You need to see that the bread has risen before baking it.)


Or, if you want to get straight into making some rolls, here's my bread rolls recipe.


And, bit more complicated, this one, here's my basic loaf of bread recipe.

Breadmaking is much easier than pastrymaking (IMHO), and the dough is much more forgiving. What's more, virtually anything that can be made with pastry can be made with a bread dough – which can be completely fat free!

Apart from all this, there are several other reasons for making your own bread:

It's a lot cheaper - a 1.5kg bag of own-brand white flour, which will make three large loaves, currently costs less than one loaf of bread in the shops. A 25cm (10") cheese and tomato pizza can be made for around 70p. And you can make a batch of Chelsea buns for less than the price of one in a baker's shop.

It's healthier. You control the quality of the food you feed your family. Check out the number of ingredients on a wrapped sliced loaf.

It's more convenient than buying your bread - one of my students, who lives about 300 yards from a large supermarket told me she thought it was quicker to knock up a batch of rolls rather than nip to the supermarket.

At home you can make many different varieties of breads that you cannot even buy – or are very expensive to buy in the shops.

If you'd rather have organic bread it's much cheaper to make your own. If you want bread without salt, you have to make it yourself. The only way to make breads like pane casereccio (filled with Italian sausage and Gruyere - I use vegan sausage and cheese), or tarte Alsace* (a thin dough covered with [vegan] creme fraiche, then thinly sliced onions and slices of mushroom and tomato) is to make them yourself.

It's very enjoyable, dammit! It's fun to make your own bread - it's very satisfying to see a batch of terrific-smelling, great-looking bread come out of the oven. You get a sense of achievement you cannot get with any other branch of cooking (IMO!) (But beware – it can become very addictive.)

And if you're around kids, it's lovely to share the experience with them. Kids and breadmaking just go so well together.

A SEEDED WHOLEMEAL LOAF

Singed a bit - but showing the sunflower seeds

I had a plea from a friend of mine who was trying to follow my recipe for overnight-proving, no-knead loaf. It never seemed to rise properly the second time, he reported.

So I thought I should go back to basics, and give the recipe I’ve been following recently.

It takes less than 2 hours, only uses one proving (rising), and yet it’s a very tasty loaf.

I’ve recently re-discovered the joys of toasted seeds in my bread – but they can be left out with no effect – except the loaf will have more flavour if they're included.

FROM AVERAGE TO AWESOME - A (now) VEGAN-FRIENDLY HOTEL

I've recently spent a few days at a lovely old hotel in Sesimbra, Portugal, the Hotel Do Mar, with my son and three of my four grandchildren. (The fourth, 22 months old, stayed at home with my daughter.)

Before we went, I spoke to the hotel who vaguely assured me that they would be able to cater for my veganism.

On the first day, I had breakfast of cereal with fruit juice, toast and jam - so no problem there. (I don't usually have breakfast, but, hey, I'm on holiday, right?)

When I spoke to the Maitre D, I had to explain - several times - just exactly what a vegan could and could not eat. He was very curious - and a bit mystified, I have to say.

Lunch was veg soup, fried potatoes and bread. Interestingly, the soup was billed as a cream soup - but I was assured that 'creamed' in this case meant 'blitzed'. The Portuguese haven't yet adopted the abominable English (?) habit of adding cream to their soups.

SEITAN - NOW FOR MY ROAST DINNER

200g of seitan - enough for a meal with some leftover for the next day

Once the seitan is made, fill up a small cooking dish with as much as you can get in - in this case, around 200g - and then cook for 30 minutes at 200C.

I generally have about 2/3rds of this with my roast dinner, and the rest I'll chop into chunks and have in a chilli non carne or similar.

FRYING PAN CHOCOLATE CAKE(S)

[More info to come - of course! :)]

GLUTEN FREE and VEGAN PIKELETS

Just beginning to cook

Cooking the other side

Done! Takes about 5 minutes.