ptw1953

I haven't been on the site for some time, but wish to say Happy New Year to all. I see that Ann_T is still making me hungry...

I am wishing to purchase some black cocao butter, but it is scarcer than hobby-horse sh*te here in the UK. I do have some cocao butter, and some black fat-soluble powder. Tips and tricks for the making of black cocao butter at home would be most welcome... ptw1953

@Ann_T with pleasure. To make circa 8 Scottish crumpets: 2 tablespoons of caster sugar (superfine in Canada/USA?) 1 large egg, at room temperature 170g of full cream milk 140g of plain flour (all-purpose flour in Canada/USA) 5g of fine salt 4.5g cream of tartar 2.5g bakig soda In a large bowl, whisk the sugar and egg until thickened and pale in colour. Then stir in the milk. Add the flour, salt, cream of tartar, and baking soda. Blend until a smooth batter. Then let sit for 5 minutes. To cook the crumpets, I heat a 6" (bottom diameter) seasoned steel frying pan for 4 minutes on a medium-high heat on my induction hob. I then rub it with an oiled piece of kitchen roll. Then I ladle circa 40g of the batter into the frying pan and, using the base of the ladle, swirl the batter around unitil the base of the pan is fully covered. I cook for 1 minute, then turn over and cook for a further minute. remove to a wire rack, and repeat as necessary. They are especiall delicious just warm, and slathered with butter and apricot jam... Enjoy!

My kind neighbour lells me that she can smell when I am baking bread, as the extractor fan in my kitchen disperses the smell to her garden. Could I use this 1.5 kilo of plain flour (is that all-purpose flour in north america?) that she bought in Sainsburys? Toot sweet I accepted it, and she wouldn't accept any payment. So, this is my breakfast for the forseeable future, and I have enough flour to make another 40 of these Scottish crumpets. Not the best I have ever made, but still a godsend from my kindly neighbour...

Many thanks Ann; but in truth, a blind man could see that compared to your breads, mine are only ok. I don't know how you do it, but attempting to emulate is my continuing goal...

My son texted me, saying that my grandsons were asking if Papa would make some bread for them. Emotional blackmail is bad, but surely works. My difficulty is that I have no T65 flour left, and only 3 kilos of '00' flour to work with (flour is still as scarce as hobby-horse sh*te here in Edinburgh's shops; and it's worse on-line). I worked out the amounts of flour required for a pizza, a boule and a pain de mie, then proceeded to bake. I am now bereft of flour, for the near future at least, having only enough left for feeding my sourdough starter for 2 weeks maximum. I do have an alert placed for some T65 and more '00', but do not know when the internet supplier will have both back in stock. My son took the photo of the boule crumb he is to photography, what jack the ripper was to walking the streets late at night. C'est la vie...

This is good news @ElsieD

Sourdough Boule, for the Wild Garlic veloute I am in the process of making...

To me, these mages are so rich and, almost, spoonable. This brioche is going to be premiere, for sure...

Oh that is a pity @ElsieD. I do think that there is an issue with your Pullman Pan. It seems to me, wearing my Engineer's hat, that the curved/ sliding areas of the Pan lid have not been formed correctly at the factory. I would try the suggestion given by @lindag. The lid surely should be able to take the amounts of bread and yeast in the recipe. 17g of Dried Active Yeast is what I use in the recipe, and it works very well for me. Usually, when the 30 minutes are up, I take ot the oven, remove the lid and check the colouring of the bread. Mostly I have to give it an extra 3 minutes to get the colour up a bit, but these last two times, the bread has been fine after 30 minutes. I apologise for missing that out of the recipe I posted. Your loaf shape (other than the top), and crumb, look great. I think that, with a little tweaking on your Pan lid, you will be constantly producing superb Pain de Mie....

@ElsieD I am more than happy to share my recipe. It is an amalgam of various Pain de Mie recipes I have attempted over the years. I use a 13" Pullman Pan with a lid to bake the bread in, but have used a 10" pan with a lid, and just reduced all the ingredients by one third: It came out well. Pre-heat your oven to 250c (mine is fan-assisted, so that is probably 270c in a non fan-assisted oven, I think) Ingredients: 15g Unsalted butter, cut into small cubes 30g Fresh yeast (as fresh yeast is extremely scarce here at the moment, I now use 17g of Dried Active Yeast) 750g Strong white flour 15g Salt 75ml Full-fat milk 450ml Water, boiled and cooled to 99F/37c If using the fresh yeast, rub it and the butter into the flour. Then add to your mixer bowl, with the salt, water and milk. Mix at speed 2 for 5 minutes, until the dough comes away from the sides of the bowl. If using the Dried Active Yeast, add 50ml of the water to it, and leave for 5 minutes until frothy. Rub the butter into the flour, then add to the mixer bowl with the remaining water, milk and salt. Mix at speed 2 for 5 minutes, until the dough comes away from the sides of the bowl. Empty the dough into a proving bowl, cover with cling-film, and leave to prove until doubled in size. (this takes only 1 hour in my kitchen, at the moment) Once proved to your satisfaction, knock back, shape to fit the Pullman Pan on a lightly floured surface (I don't stretch or fold, or whatever; I just lift the mass into the Pan, and push down to have an even surface of dough in the Pan). Cover with the lid, and check every 5 minutes or so, to see the extent of the rise. (I let it rise to about 10mm from the lid, then I set my timer for 10 minutes. Once the 10 minutes is up, I reduce the oven temperature to 220c, and put in the Pan. Cook for 30 minutes. Once the 30 minutes are up, remove from the oven, decamp the gorgeous loaf from the Pan, and take lots of crappy photos (well, that's what I do). Enjoy ElsieD...

Well, my daughter-in-law came down with my grandsons, and took the bread away. Was good to see the boys, even at a distance. She needs a new knife. It looks as though she cut the loaf with a blunt chainsaw... The crumb:

What's App message last evening from my daughter-in-law; 'Can you make us a loaf of bread please. We have no flour, and there's none in Sainsburys.' Up at 6am, breakfast, then began mixing the dough for a Pain de Mie. finished baking it at 9am. Cooling down as I type, and I'm willing to bet that no one will pick it up until later today...

Sourdough pizza. Work needed on the shaping, and the topping (home-made passata, spicy chorizo, spring onions, mozzarella and basil). We enjoyed eating it immensely...

I Haven't posted, nor baked, for circa 6 weeks, but it felt so good to produce a bog-standard boule today. We ate half of it, with carrot and coriander soup I made earlier this morning... Lockdown be damned!