glennbech

... We also went to Giraffe, and was very pleased with the experience. We only had desserts, but my brownie was soft and full of chocolate, and the vanlillca Ice cream had real vanilla in it. 100% score for the waitstaff as well... The had fun with our little boy from the moment we got in until we left. Excellent business Idea to serve decent food in a child friendly environment. This is definitly a place where both parents and kids can have a good time. Oh... Im not sure I would call the menu "gourmet", but who gets to decide what is and what is not... ? :-)

Our first Lunch Experience here in London was "The Narrow". The Narrow is one of Gordon Ramsay's latest venues located in Narrow Street out far east. You have to take the DLR to get there, and since the line was out of comission for the easter we ended up taking a cab. The place is a "pub", with a menu celebrating traditional english food. When we got there for lunch at around 1:00, the place was full, and 2 out of about 7 or eight tables were families with children. Not bad! We really enjoyed the food, and I would certainly recomend it as a child friendly place, with high chairs available. The wait staff seemed real used to catering for families with kids. I ended up ordering a generous glass of chablis to go with a cold crab and toast starter. As a main I ordered boiled beef served in its own broth. The meat literally fell apart on the touch of the fork, and was salty but not too salty. I got myself some english cheeses, biscuts and a glass of Tokaij to finish what seems to be a good start of our Easter Holiday :-)

Thank you. Peter reinhard's Foccacia recipe has a lot of oil in the dough, and a lot of herb oil sprinkled on top. Do you use the same amount of oil when making sandwich foccacias? Or do you use the Pain a l'ancienne recipe as well as the teqhnique?

I recently ate out at a seafood restaurant in Oslo, and had a great meal. The fish came from the grill, and was placed on top of a potato mash with lots and lots of butter (maybe oil as well), and smoked eel. The mix was mixed to a puree. Is there a name for this? Potato mash with mashed smoked fish? :-) Other recipes?

I am hereby Picking up the thread and challenge you other guys with the book to bake something this easter! I did the foccacia last week, and was a little bit confused about the suggested total height of the finished loaf. The book says something about 1-1,5 inches, but the picture in the book looks a lot more like lets say 0.5-1 inch. I guess mine are somewhere in between. It isn't always easy to dish up a pan of the exact dimensions of the recipe! Anyhow... I was pretty happy with the result, except from a few burned pieces of sundried tomato and olives....

hummingbirdkiss! Don't give up!! One of my biggest frustrations with sourdough baking, is that it takes so much time from start to end. When you fail the dissapointment is heartbreaking! This is the price to pay for that special kind of bread. I am sure you can imagine how I felt in one of my early atempts, when after 3 days of hard work, the loaf stuck to my peel, and I had to tear it off and bake that deflated lump... I can't tell you how many times my dough stuck to my banneton (proofing basket), and totally deflated the moment just before baking. Here is my suggestion; Take a small break from sourdough and practice all the techniques that people here have suggested, on yeasted doughs! You can get amazing loaves with the open texture and amazing big uneven holes you desire, without sourdough! The big uneven holes is usually just an attribute of a well fermented wet dough, baked on a very hot surface! You can even make "practice runs" with douhgs that take 2-3 hours from initial mixing to baking! When you master all the "sliding pizza parchment", "steam pan in the bottom of the oven", blah blah techniques. And you have a loaf with big uneven holes... switch to sourdough .-) I very often try out a new recipe using instant yeast, often much more of it than described in the recipe. I then finish it in "no time", and go back to do it properly with sourdough or long time fermentation with a minimal amount of yeast (sponge/biga methods) later. A very good example of when this was usefull for me was while doing bagels for the first time. The dough needs to be stiff, and you have a few "moments of truth" along the way (how long to proof, boiling the bagels, shaping etc.) The first time I did this recipe I used yeast, and had no "overnight" refrigerated fermentation. I was finished within few hours. And guess what; The taste wasn't foul at all :-) Keep up the spirit and don't let the sourdough problems kill your joy of baking bread!

Do you use the whole egg, or just the white ?

If you are in a rush, and don't want to use a lot of time baking, but still want a semi-good result, i suggest you go for an enriched dough (fats, milk, eggs, sugar etc added). This is because time is neccesary to bring out the natural flavours in the fine flour. Here are two "cheater's" loaves. 1,000 g flour 670g lukewarm water 20g salt 1 or two tspns of honey 1 dl olive oil 1 packet of instant yeast Oils and other fats in the dough softens the crumb of your loaf. Experiments with diffent ratios to get the right balance for your taste and "health requirements". Honey and sugards in the dough helps browning and caramelization of the crust. If you use only white flour, you have to ferment the dough for a long time to get a deep brown/golden crust colour. The sugar/honey trick helps out here. The dough should ferment to at least double in size. Then be "knocked down", split in two, shaped and put into pans. Let double again (or reach the top of your pan). Bake for 50-60 minutes at ~ 200 degrees. It can't be more basic than this .-) You can do it in about 2 hours.

It might be that have the wrong terminology here, is "eggwash" a whisked egg? My experience is that using eggs will both brown the crust, and make it more shiny, Using only the white will give more shinyness. I've also seen somene use gelatin/sugar to give buns an extremely shiny finish :-)

Hi hummingbird.... Keep going !.-) Just a question to clarify; You said that none of your starters wer proofing. Did you mix a dough with them, that didn't rise, or were they just not bubbeling and active 6-12 hours after you "fed" them? I have nothing against yeast... Sometimes I drop a "pea" of yeast in my sourdough to make a faster bread that still has that charismatic taste. But bread machines... take away some of the charm for me :-)

I love pizza. Pizza for dessert would be perfect. Do you use a regular dough or a sweet one? What kind of cheese is Robiola, and do I see a herb on top of the pizza? I also find it amusing when your eyeas see something, your mind expects something, but your taste buds report something completely different :-)

lisa_antonia: Was this a Is it a "rich man's" brioche, or a "poor-man's" brioche? (How much eggs/fats etc?) The crust, and the colour of the crumb is just amazing ! :-)

I totally agree on the advice on taking notes. I have a hand written scetchbook with pages stained with dough, olive oil and flour from my first sourdough atempts. Also; Invenst in a digital scale if you don't have one. Measure and record everything, so you can reproduce the good results, make improvements and evolve .-) Also; If you have "non stick memory" like me, you might also find it usefull to use a water-based marker pen, and write *on* the plastic wrap / cling film covering a dough at what time it's finished fermenting etc. etc. Also; Learn how to post pictures here if possible, as it becomes easier to help. Some of the people here have a keen eye for a loaf, and can tell just by looking at one if it's under/over baked, under/over proofed etc .-) Good luck .-)

Come on you can do it! :-) Just make sure that your starter is active when you incorporate it into your dough, and that you follow a proven recipe for ratios of flour/water/starter etc. Please post your progress :-)

I know the original post requested a recipe for a rye bread to use in a bakery. This post might be a bit "off topic", I guess I got a little carried away , I hope you all don't mind! Here is my atempt at a rye, heavily inspired by Dan Lepard's 100% sour rye recipe from the Handmande loaf. I say "Inspired by" because I have no natural rye leavin, and my wheat starter needs activation. I baked this as a yeasted bread, with an instant yeast sponge of wheat, making it about 72% non-sour rye instead... Now that I think of it, I regret not using rye for the sponge as well... You might say that it's not even the same bread as in the original recipe. You are probably right, but for me this was all about trying out the incorporation of a gelatinous water/flour mix, obtained by mixing rye flour into near-boiling water, into the dough, to improve rising capabilities and elasticity in the dough. The results where pretty good, but the loaf looks like a brick. I would have liked it to proof more like a baton in a basket, or a couche. But the taste was excellent, and the crumb pretty open and light for such a loaf. Here goes... Water is boiled, then quickly reduced to 80 degrees c After mixing in the rye flour (i used fine flour here), you end up with something like this picture. Please note that mine is a bit thick, because I let too much of the water evaporate from my boiling pot. My instant yeast sponge ... (100g water/100g Wheat flour, 1 teaspoon of instant yeast) One hour later, the flour/water mix is a bit colder, and the sponge has grown "a bit" :-) ... All ingredients are combined, and my work surface looks like a mess :-) This loaf is going to be a baton. ... ... .... ... Here we are ready for the fridge.... After an overnight stay in the fridge, it took it out and let it proof for about 5 hours. I had to make some extra water/rye mix glazed.... ... And baked... ... After cutting it...

Thank you all I'll update the thread after my visit with some photo's of Lonon's finest

Im going to london this easter, and want to make sure that I've visited the avant garde bakeries in london, if there is such a thing, and the brits are concerned about the bread they eat :-) I've found this promising bakery, close to where we are going to stay ; http://www.lepainquotidien.com/ Is there any bakery i "must visit" during my stay? (willing to travel around a bit of course)

I got a little enthustiastic about rye baking, and before I knew it I had a 800g loaf in the fridge for baking tomorrow. I'll post a complete picture sequence tomorrow, even if the whole experiment goes bad, promise! :-) My loaf is based on Dan Lapard's 100% sour rye recipe, using a rye leaven. Since I had none, I made a wheat sponge whith instant yeast. If I had a bit more time, I would have activated my dormant wheat leaven that has separated in it's Jar in the fridge... Next time maybe. The recipe reserves no time for initial fermentation, only proofing, up to 5 hours room temperature. That is timing for natural leaven, my guess is that my yeasted loaf will proof faster. I'm going to do no initial room temperature proofing and 12 hours+ in the fridge. Tomorrow the loaf will get 2-3 hours of "wake up" time before baking. The trick wit hthis recipe is to boil water, and when it cools to about 90 degrees c, whisk in rye flour to get a gelatinous mass that will help the elasticity of the loaf. The loaf will aslo get a treatment of this flour before baking, to improve crust. I've said this before... working with rye is a mess! On the positive side, I've just found a good technique for removing it from hands etc. It seems that the only thing that really works is hard mechanical scrubbing with a brush :-) I'll post my results tomorrow :-)

That was US dollars yes. The price of food is higher in Norway compared to our neighbouring countries, and more "exotic" things like organic/free range etc, are even pricier. But is was tasty :-)

This is horribagel :-) This is what happens with the bagel if the dough isn't stiff enough :-) Just though it might cheer you up guzzirider

Lol ! :-) Call me a french snob (even if Im norwegian), but I I find that Rye tastes a little bit like animal fodder :-) I also find Rye very difficult to manually handle as it sticks to bl**dy everything, and is impossible to get of your hands after baking ! :-) Even a 20-30% rye dough will mess up my kitchen

There is a recipe if I remember, in "The hand made loaf" by Dan Lepard, for a 100% rye bread whole meal rye is boiled. The boiled rye goes into the dough, and the outside of the loaf is also treated with this. I've seen Dan lurking in this forum, he can correct me If Im wrong. Maybe I'll try the recipe out, and post results in this Thread :-) Maybe we all should chip in, and have a "Rye baking contest" .-)

Good quality produce is expensive. I just bought a free range "farm chicken" (Not sure what the international term is). The Price tag? $36 for ~ 2,5 kilos. How does this compare to other places in the world? This is high quality organic chicken from one of the better small farms in Norway (Stange gård). Anyhow, this is what I got out of it; - 2 x 400g Chicken breasts - 2 x 450g Chicken legs - 1 liter of delicious gelatinous chicken stock. - 100g of meat removed from the carcas after the stock was finished. - I tried something very interesting with the left over meat; I cooked it into a stew in loads of stock until all the stock was reduced. I was then planning to make tiny spring-rolls with the meat. Did anyone try this? I got it at a local restaurant last week, and the taste of the reduced stock with the meat was awsome. I ended up with a miserable atempt at chicken balls in a chicken soup instead, and the balls dissolved!! :-) I guess I Should have gone with the spring-rolls! - Any Ideas for the chicken legs? I was thinking Clay pot cooking with cream/yoghurt, Indian style or something like that.... - Any Ideas for the leftover stock ? Soup ? Sauce? - Any interesting recipies for a 400g chicken breast? I really like buying the whole bild like this, and then try to make the most out of it. Even if it's an expenisve raw ingredient, it doesn't look too bad when you see everything you can get out of it. (Chicken soup, Spring rools, two chicken breast dinners, one chicken leg dinner etc.)

Are you looking for a 100% rye bread, or a mixed wheat/rye?

Thank you, this was exactly the kind of reply I was looking for. I'll check out the maps and see what it's the proximity :-) Going for lunch was also an excellent idea, as our 8 month old is at his most charming around that time. (And not so around 6pm .-) I'm not saying that Giraffe was a bad suggestion, If I see the sign, I'll definitly drop by there as well