Monday 5 October 2015

Monday

Good morning and welcome to an earlier morning than I have seen in recent times.  It's dark, very dark out there but not particularly cold - no slippers or dressing gown this morning.

I'm up for two reasons.  The first is, obviously, that I'm working today so got the usual early start and slightly restless night.

The other is that I tried the 'frozen dough' thing overnight.  At around eight yesterday evening I got out a solid lump of dough that had been frozen in a loaf tin so it was the right shape, bunged it back in a tin, covered it with oiled cling film and left it to slowly thaw.  This morning it was nicely risen so into the hot oven it went but - well, unfortunately it flopped back a bit so instead of a nice domed top, it is flatter than I expected.  I'm not sure how it tastes and how it looks inside as it's still too hot to cut but initially I am disappointed.  I was so hoping this would work better.  I have a second dough loaf frozen so will try giving it a shorter time before baking and see if that helps

Yesterday ended up sunny again but not that warm out of the sun.  Beth came round and we worked on organisational stuff for our little Facebook shop which - fanfare of trumpets - is now open!  It's just things we have made but if you use Facebook and would like to go and see, here's the link.
https://www.facebook.com/kittystitches1



I also made two lots of bread, one lot for Beth in the morning and one lot for my customersin the afternoon/evening!  I wouldn't mind a few more local people ordering now I've got into the swing of it!  I do enjoy making bread.

So - back to school today and we start by going straight out again, walking to the church for harvest festival.  Fingers crossed it stays dry, please.  Apart from getting to know the children a bit better that I do now, I should be OK with most of it as I have done Y1 for decades and recognise the lessons in the planning, some of which is mine from days gone by!

I'm looking forward to today!  :-)

Food:
Fresh, still warm bread and butter with cheese (oooh, naughty but nice)
Lunch:  Spanish omelette with salad (left overs)
Dinner:  Normandy chicken (from freezer), yogurt
And . . . playtime fruit - yay!

And I have just cut into the loaf - it looks great inside, good crumb and it tastes excellent.  It's just the wonky dome that's a problem - and looks do matter when you are selling it!
Must just check again, in case I was wrong with the first slice!  Maybe with coffee this time.


5 comments:

  1. Back when I loved baking bread I used to make a no knead dough, freeze it and use the defrosted dough to make pizza bases. Of course they didn't need / want to rise, but it tasted as good as non-frozen dough. No help for you in that, I'm afraid - hope you figure something out!

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  2. I think making wrapping it Sunday evening means that when I hand it over it is still less than 16 hours old - within a day anyway!
    J x

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  3. I wonder what it'd be like if you part baked it till it was almost done, took it out to cool, freeze then finished off - like you can buy in the shops? Maybe you'd need to fast freeze it? Just a thought.

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  4. Sounds as if it might of over proved a bit.

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  5. I did wonder about that, Rachel, but I'd feel I was giving them pre-frozen bread. Maybe it's a fine point but . . .
    Yes, Diane, I think it was over proved and was maybe on its way down again. I didnt have time to re knead, etc.
    J x

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