JohnT

Franci, that looks really scrumptious! When you say corn flour, are you referring to corn starch or actual flour made from corn? Also, is sugar an ingredient?

Oh dear! But then, only a few drops on the stone. Like they say when an aircraft has a small accident - "it should buff out quite quickly"!

Now that will be interesting to see!

Somehow I missed this thread. As mentioned above by Lisa Shock, the two books by Ciril Hitz are quite good except you must download the errata updates from his web site. For a really good "learning" experience on bread, the book: "Bread baking - An artisan's perspective, by Daniel T. DiMuzio", I find, is a very good reference book. It is published by John Wiley & Sons. It is quite a thick book and aimed as his teaching course.

One look at that and I thought "ah, a thingamajig whatchamacallit"! In other words, I have no idea but did think it looked like an early model slow cooker.

KoB, nothing like a rustic loaf! Now the trick is to cut a slice of your baguette and post a photograph of the slice showing the crumb structure. I have the funny feeling that it may be a bit dense! What is your hydration percentage?

Nice blog weinoo. I have also read most of the posts in the thread and some of the posts brought a smile to my face. My experience in visiting different villages and regions of Spain over the years is that the dish is so varied from village to village and region to region. There is no one correct recipe although, within a village, each family thinks their paella recipe is the only way it is made and everybody else in the village is wrong and the village paella idiot. The ingredients change, at time quite dramatically, from region to region, depending on what is easily obtainable in the area. However, the method of cooking is basically the same and so is the type of rice, stock and spice used in the dish. And I have often found chorizo in my paella!

Okay, here is something I came across in Cadiz, Spain, about 10 years back and am looking for what it is called or anybody who can shed some light on the process, which appears quite simple to me (but may have a few hidden tricks involved). Outside a Carrefore supermarket near the fresh produce market there was a street vendor who was making deep fried "fries". He had a tank of what must have been mashed potato, with a flexible pipe and a nozzle, similar to a large star tip on a piping bag, and a hand valve. He then had a small deep fryer heated with LPG. On order, he extruded the mash mixture, in about 4 to 5 inch lengths, directly into the deep fryer and in a short time scooped the cooked fries out, placed them into a cardboard cone and, after a quick shake of salt over them, presented the fries to the customer. He was doing a roaring trade! Anybody know what this process is called or can point me to a web site that explains exactly how it is done?

Our cake flour is 12.4% protein, if that helps. I think this is roughly equal to your AP flour, but could be wrong.I first stretched the dough in a ½ sheet pan and it completely filled the pan with a 10 to 12mm height of dough. This was too large for me so I then divided it into four and re-stretched it on a full sized sheet pan, making four equal ovals (not rounds) that just had a small gap between the ovals. This would equate to stretching a quarter of the dough into an oval shape on a ¼ size sheet pan. Each oval was roughly 10mm in height after stretching. After the final hour rest or proving, each oval had an additional rise of about 5mm to bring it to about 15mm in height. After baking they were just over 20mm in height - finished product. The top and bottom of each bread was crisp, but not overly so - the crumb was lovely and soft with good air pockets. Unfortunately, I did not take any photographs - bad dog spot! Just as a matter of interest, we are into winter in the bottom pointy end of Africa and the temperature for the entire day was in the region of 14 to 17°C with high humidity. The initial 4 hours rise was done in a cloth covered bowl on my one s/s work table - quite cool. The 1 hour proving was done in my cold oven (it had not been used all day) and the final rest after pouring on the emulsion was again on the cold s/s work table. I hope the above helps.

ElsieD, I made the Franci's focaccia the other day and it was excellent. I used a full sheet pan and divided the dough into four equal parts and did not try and stretch the dough by pulling, but by slowly pressing down and thus spreading it that way. After doing this I had my four oval breads, each about 1cm thick. After letting them rest for another hour, they were about 15mm thick. Did the emulsion and the rested a further 20 minutes whilst the oven came to temperature. I have a high blast commercial convection oven and only brought it to 210°C and used no steam as the water in the emulsion created its own steam. Baked for 17 minutes and it was done - nice golden crust and beautiful soft crumb. I used our standard cake flour for both the poolish and the main dough - we do not get AP flour here, only cake or bread flour and our cake flour is quite high in gluten. I think your problem is that you tried to stretch the dough by pulling and not pushing down on it to slowly ease it into shape. The recipe is really very easy and the results are absolute magic! It is just time consuming, which is really not a problem if you have sufficient space to put the dough out of the way when doing other baking or cooking. I did sprinkle freshly chopped rosemary on the focaccia immediately after pouring on the emulsion, together with the salt. On one of the breads I also put on some finely chopped garlic as an experiment. However, the garlic burnt and I would not try this again. I am now experimenting to see how the bread freezes for later consumption after reheating.

Thanks CP - that is pretty simple and straight forward! I will see in the morning if my supplier still has stock and if so, give it a go in the afternoon if we do not have power cuts (or even try the gas oven). Just confirm, you do not cook the rhubarb first - just raw product into the batter? John.

Mmmmm maybe - never looked for it so actually do not know. Maize or corn starch is freely available here and, I am sure potato starch should be available.

Interesting! Can you point me to your recipe? I have not see rhubarb at any fruit and veg supplier here for over 15 years. Today, they had boxes and boxes of it at very good prices - I have to go and pick up an order tomorrow morning so will get some to experiment with. The last time I cooked anything with rhubarb was nearly 40 years ago!

Radtek, you are correct, it is available at some home brew suppliers. It costs about $15.00 for a small can plus shipping at about $18. Not really worth it when you only use a tablespoon or two a year. Molasses is available at around $1.50 for a 1kg bottle, which I already use in other products and it is easily obtainable. It was incorrect of me to say we do not get malt syrup here but, at the prices it is available for, let's just say it is so outrageously expensive, I consider it "unavailable" and use a sub. To use when making Franci's focaccia, molasses is a good sub but you could actually leave it out altogether and use a teaspoon of sugar instead. It appears it is just there to feed the yeast.

Franci, focaccia used to be a very available flat-bread in my part of South Africa, but is now hardly ever found in bakeries anymore - most likely due to to the cost of the evoo these days. That good stuff has tripled in price over the past few years! But, I am going to give your recipe a go on Wednesday and make a few as a test batch and then make some for a catering gig I have in two weeks time - it really looks absolutely darn good. I must admit that I have never come across making an emulsion to use on a bread item and the idea makes a lot of sense. Thanks for posting the recipe. I may tweak it by adding fresh chopped rosemary in place of onion.

We do not get malt syrup in my part of the world and for the occasional recipe requiring it, I normally sub with molasses at a ratio 1:0.66 malt syrup:molasses and never had a problem. I cannot answer your second question but cannot see why you could not make a half portion!

CeeCee, what recipe do you want to use maas in? It is very common in our supermarkets here and is normally drunk directly out the carton by the African population. It is not used very much in my part of the country in cooking or baking. John

Radtek, if your dough starts to "overhang" as you put it, there is something wrong. Your dough may rise but should not spread over the edges of your pan. It may be that you are over-proving or your dough is over hydrated and cannot hold its shape. If you really want an abnormal size pan, get a metal workshop to bash one out for you. I had a local metal workshop make me a whole bunch of 12 x 10 x28cm pans to bake farmers loaves in. Made out of aluminium, they are brilliant and cost a fraction of the price of the domestic ones available in retail shops. ETA : that's 4.75" W x 4" H x 11" L

This is the easiest and quickest pâté recipe you will find. I make it quite often when doing seafood platters. Mostly I use canned oysters but have resorted to steamed ones when canned are not available. It gets many compliments and requests for the recipe.OYSTER PÂTÉ Ingredients: 1 x 225 g can oysters in salt water, drained or 1 large cup steamed oysters 5 ml lemon juice 1 slice of onion, chopped a little freshly ground pepper 100 ml melted butter Method: Put all ingredients into blender and buzz just once or twice, to chop coarsely, then pot and chill about 4 hours. Serve with unbuttered whole wheat bread or hot toast. Alternative: You can also do this recipe with 1 x 290 g can shelled baby clams instead of the oysters. You'll agree that it should then be called Clam Pâté. Enjoy!

Smithy, a large cup of those oysters and you can make the most diliscious oyster pâté to go with that supurb looking bread you made - a five minute job!

Thanks so much for your comments and links. I must admit that I have been to the Carabbean about 35 times and have sat drinking Piña Coladas on many occasions on the various islands - and never knew that they used anything other than standard coconut cream! The sugar content is not that much (20g to a 425g can), so, I will do some experimenting over the next few days and see what I come up with. Your recipe also includes sweetened shredded coconut, which is unheard of here, so I am going to do some experimenting in that area as well. John.

Kim, thanks for posting a link to your recipe - just one question! What is sweetened coconut cream? Here in Darkest Africa we get cans of coconut cream and that is it! Would I have to add sugar to a can to get "sweetened" coconut cream or just use the natural cream as it comes? If I had to add sugar to sweeten it, about how much sugar would I add? And just to expand on the Darkest Africa bit, we have had loadshedding for the second time today - the first time this morning was unannounced and a whole batch of puddings flopped when the power went out and the ovens when "silent". Just need to figure out what to do with the result other than bin them.

I would recommend a firm white fish. We get what is known as a "yellowtail" off our coast at this time of the year, which is normally used. However, I have often used longfin or yellowfin tuna which I have caught on a hand line off the back of sail boats on my way to St Helena Island. I would not use an oily fish or one that tends to "flake" when cooked.ETA link to Yellowtail - http://www.wwfsassi.co.za/?m=5&s=5&idkey=911

This may be a bit late! But better late than never! In the old days, the Cape of Good Hope, as it was first known (now known as the City of Cape Town), was not always a happy place for the entire population - there were an abundant number of slaves that were brought to the colony from the East, mainly for the woman folk to work in the kitchens of their masters and the men to work in construction. These unfortunate people made use of their location for celebrating Easter with what they had - plenty of spices off the passing ships out of the East and an abundance of fish to be caught in the bays. To this day the Cape Malay people still celebrate Easter by making a picked fish. Here is the recipe I use - it's tangy and good! Maybe somebody would like to try a batch as it makes a brilliant summer lunch, served with a green salad on the side and a doorstep of bread just out the oven (and a good slathering of salted butter). CAPE MALAY PICKLED FISH Ingredients: 2 to 2.5kg firm fish salt & pepper oil for frying 750ml brown vinegar 250ml water 170g sugar 1 tablespoon turmeric 3 tablespoons medium curry powder 1½ teaspoons salt 1 tablespoon black peppercorns 4 large onions, finely sliced 6 Bay leaves 170g sultanas (optional - I do not add them) 4 teaspoons flour Method: Fillet the fish and cut into cubes - slightly bigger than an inch. Season lightly with salt and pepper and fry in hot oil until cooked though. Drain on kitchen paper. In a large saucepan combine the vinegar, water, turmeric, flour, curry powder, salt and peppercorns and bring to the boil. Add onions and Bay leaves and simmer for 10 to 12 minutes until the onion is cooked but still slightly crunchy. Layer the fish, sultanas and onion in a large non-metallic dish, pour sauce over and refrigerate. Keep refrigerated for at least 3 days before eating - keeps for a month in the fridge.

I normally serve it warm with a bit of the sauce also warmed. Some folk serve it warm with custard and others with a small scoop of vanilla ice cream. John