Sunday 23 January 2011

Sunday morning

Well, yesterday was a good day for various reasons. Lovely swim, successful shop, got some housework done, stuck to the food plans, George came and did some gardening for me . . . all combined to make a satisfying day.

Today should be as good. Swimming, sorting out some messy corners, DD and DG coming round and trying out a new recipe.

Yesterday, in Sainsbury's, a book caught my eye. It was entitled 'Five Minute Bread', intriguing enough to make me stop, pick it up and spent the next five minutes looking through it before popping it into my trolley. The financial conscience pricked a bit but was calmed by the thought that I won't be paying any rates or water rates in the next two months!

You can read a couple of reviews here, on Amazon. I would have started it yesterday but don't have any unbleached plain flour in the house (funny, that, eh?) so will pop into town after swimming to get some from Holland and Barrett (fingers crossed that they have some). The idea is that you mix up this bread dough with more or less the usual ingredients, but it is a very wet dough. It rests for a couple of hours and then it is covered (but not air tight) and stored in the fridge for up to two weeks.
When you want a loaf, you cut off a chunk, mould it, let it rise for a short time and bake it. That's it, no kneading, rising, knocking back, proving, etc. I though it was worth a look at, the reviews are good, they say it tastes like 'artisan' bread (i.e. delicious!) and, from what I have seen, the dough freezes, which would be helpful. There's a book full of variations, some of which look very good indeed and, remembering the cost of those artisan breads on the stall in town last week, this would be a real saver. Anyway, I'm going to give it a go and see: if it 'works' and it is something of which I'd want to do more , I might look out for a pizza stone, which is ideally what you cook your loaves on.

Wish me luck.

No comments:

Post a Comment