A loaf was requested by Scamp. Also, the topic for this week in Flickr Friday was Daily Bread. I imagine bread would fit both bills.
With the foregoing in mind, and after a nudge from Scamp, I got started on some bread themed work this morning. I used my ready reckoner to determine the amount of water, yeast, butter and salt I’d need for the 312g of bread flour I’d measured out. It’s always good to go with the old fashioned photogs “Time and Temperature” method. Of course we are allowed to adjust as we go adding more water or flour as determined by the ‘feel’ of the dough. With the dough feeling suitably smooth after roughly 10 minutes of manual manipulation, I set it to rest and double in size while I had my morning coffee.
Next on Scamp’s list was ‘shopping’ or to be more Scottish, ‘messages’. We drove up to Tesco in her wee red car and made a fair fist of trying to buy the shop. Unfortunately some articles were not available, so a complete buy-out wasn’t possible in the time available, but we did try. We even forgot to get rolls, but I bravely volunteered to go back and buy some while Scamp took the rest of the purchases to the car. We’re used to watching the ‘Penchies’ (pensioners) groping the plain sliced loaves to find the freshest feeling ones, but today I met a twenty-something doing the same thing with the rolls. The first one he tried was obviously well fired, but too crispy. The second one, medium fired was better and he nearly accepted it, but put it back in favour of a ‘not so well fired’ batch. The Goldilocks Rolls. Not too hard, not too soft, just right! Once he was finished with his inspection I finally got a change to grab a lightly fired bag of six that would suit my two butterflied sausages. It’s a challenge buying the perfectly baked morning rolls.
By the time I’d chosen and paid for my rolls, Scamp had unloaded her trolley and was waiting in the car. We drove home and unloaded the back seat, because I’ve not fixed the boot lock yet. Then we could start on lunch which was Black Pudding and Egg on a roll for Scamp and two butterflied sausages on two rolls for me.
Scamp spoke to June and found out that yesterday at Hamilton Racecourse had been a brilliant night. Pity we didn’t make it, but as we found out later, we did make the right decision, based on the information we had. Glad everyone, especially June and Ian had a great time. Glad the birthday surprise was indeed a SURPRISE for Crawford and Nancy.
In the afternoon I sorted the dough and on a whim I poked a two holes for eyes, one for the nose and a curve of more holes for a smile and left the dough to do its second prove.
I went for a walk in St Mo’s with a camera that never came out of the bag. I sat for a while on a seat in the park watching the world go by and then came home, empty handed. Not one photo. I photographed the rising dough and turned the oven on. After the mandatory fifteen minutes warming up time I pushed the bread into the oven and set the timer for 20mins. That gave me time to go and photograph Scamp’s miniature tomatoes in the garden. When the timer pinged I turned the bread over and baked the bottom for another 5mins. When it came out, I photographed the bread, the Happy Bread!
Time to start the Pea and Prawn Risotto. Hand made, like the bread. Peas from the garden with the pods chopped up and boiled to make the stock. The whole risotto turned by hand using the custom made risotto paddle. It tasted almost perfect although Scamp thought it lacked salt. She always says that. The bread was lovely, with no sign of a soggy bottom! PoD was a picture of the sliced up bread, with the smiling face just visible.
Spoke to Jamie later and heard all about his new job in a new company with new people. Good to hear that there’s at least another Scotsman in the management team!
Tomorrow we have no plans, because it looks like it might be wet.