ptw1953

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 hea

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 a

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

@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 Drie

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!

@@shain & @Okanagancook I thank you both for your posts. Your advice is taken on board. I will make a pizza next Saturday night, and am now looking forward to spring, when my individual puff-pastry rhubarb tarts will be cooked on the steel...yum, yum! (I will make fresh-ginger ice cream to go with the rhubarb tarts. A match made in heaven...)