The BakeryBits Blog

Our 13″ Pullman Pan from Chicago Metallic has been very popular, and has prompted requests for a smaller version and so we have started to stock a 9″ Pullman by USA Pan, a sister company to Chicago Metallic. The recipe below is based on the Practically Perfect recipe, adapted to fill the 9″ pan. Using the quantities below, you have the basis upon which your can alter the recipe to suit you.

Ingredients:

• 385g Little Salkeld White flour (75%)
• 115g  Little Salkeld Granarius flour (25%)
• 25g Dried Malt Extract (or milk power) (5%)
• 12g sugar (2.5%)
• 25g softened butter (5%)
• 300g warm water (60%)
• 12g sea salt (2.5%)
• 12g fresh yeast (2.5%) (or 2 tsp dried yeast)

Method:

The method I prefer to use is based on that described in Dan Lepard’s Handmade Loaf as it is easy and takes most of the slog out of kneading the bread. In a large bowl, add the sugar and dried malt extract (or dried milk), butter and water and stir until dissolved. Add the remaining ingredients and stir together until reasonably mixed (for this, I use a dough whisk). Leave for 10 minutes then scrape out the bowl onto a lightly oiled work surface. Give a light knead for 10 seconds or so. The dough will be pretty wet and gooey at this point, so I hold a scraper in one

hand to scoop the dough and push down with the other which stops the dough getting all over the place. Put the dough back into the bowl for another 10 minutes and Repeat. Repeat once more and then after 30 minutes by which time the dough should be much more elastic and smooth. You probably won’t need the scraper to help with kneading any more.

Put the dough into the bowl again and leave it for an hour in a warm place and covered with a damp tea towel (this helps stop a skin forming on the dough).

Lightly oil the Pullman Pan with a light vegetable oil (not olive oil as this become very sticky when baked). Take out the dough and give a light knead to leave it flattened and round. Roll up the dough to form a cylinder – don’t be too worried about the precision of t

his as the dough is very soft and will fill t

he pan as it goes through its final prove. Put the dough into the pan and put back into the warm place, again covered with a damp tea towel.

In about an hour, the dough should have risen to about an inch (2.5cm) from the top of the pan. This is the ideal point for baking the loaf as it will expand a little more in the oven to completely fill the void. Take the pan from the warm place and pre-heat your oven to 200°C. Making sure that the lid of the pan has been lightly oiled, slide it into place, closing the pan. Place the pan into the oven and bake for 30-40 minutes. Check to see if your loaf is baked and, if it, is, turn it out onto a cooling rack.

Macmillan Cancer Support has its World’s Biggest Coffee Morning on 30th September and in addition to this, it has produced a lovely little book The Little Book of Treats which is available from Marks and Spencer stores. It contains lots of cake and biscuit recipes that made my wife and daughters ooh and aah – and compelled them to try a couple of them. They made the Beetroot and Chocolate Brownies and Claudia Winkleman’s Gingerbread Men, although our girls made Gingerbread butterflies which were delicious. We’re going to have a go at the Pumpkin and Ginger Cupcake and Sophie Dahl’s Lemon Capri Torte recipes next. Read More

Eden is cooking up a nine-day festival of food, drink, dance and merriment this autumn as it continues its exciting new culinary adventure.

The project has radically reinvented its approach to food with the recent introduction of the Eden Bakery serving up delicious hand-made breads and pastries and a new café area in the Mediterranean Biome offering Tuscan stews and wine.
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It is fairly warm outside and the kids are off school so what better than an easy home-made ice-cream? This is a no-hassle ice-cream, made with very few ingredients – no stabilizers, emulsifiers, vegetable oils or any of that nonsense commonly used in mass-produced ice-cream.
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Gardens are burgeoning with greenery so it is a good time for a straightforward sourdough loaf using garden herbs. This loaf is fairly light containing mostly white flour with some rye and spelt flour for more complex flavours. I used a selection of herbs currently in our garden: parsley, coriander, sorrel, chives, rosemary and a good helping of nasturtium leaves which have a mild peppery flavour. You can any herbs that you have, just make sure that you take out any woody bits before finely chopping them all up.
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Aidan Chapman of the Phoenix Bakery in Weymouth likes to do things properly and his annual two-week stint making 1000s of hot-cross buns is no exception. We chatted about them recently and he mentioned his frustration at not being able to get a really good non-chemical clove oil, the flavour that turns a fruit bun into a hot-cross bun (that, and the cross!). So, we decided to have some specially made containing nothing but clove essence suspended in sunflower oil. It is good stuff – and you don’t need to use a lot. In return, Aidan generously parted with his special hot-cross bun recipe.
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Recently, Aidan Chapman, master baker and joint owner with his wife, Lisa, of the Phoenix Bakery in Weymouth invited me to come along and spend a Saturday on his Apprentice Course to experience his one-man artisan bakery at first hand. It’s a compact bakery with the shop-front split between sales and baking, all on full display to passing trade. Above the shop and bakery, Aidan has a café through which there is a steady stream of customers munching on the pick of the day’s quiche, bruschetta and cake with a fresh coffee.
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Colomba Pasquale is a soft, intensely orangey cake with an almond topping, used to celebrate Easter in Italy. It is a member of the panettone family baked in a stylised dove shape, made with almonds, candied peel and Veneziana essence. The cake is eaten when (in Italy) both oranges and almonds are in blossom, celebrating the promise of the crop to come.
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Why not come along to the From Crop to Crust conference on 16 April in Stratford-Upon-Avon? From Crop to Crust is a conference that celebrates the role of the traditional mill in the local community as a source of local food, employment, community and renewable energy. Through a series of workshops, demonstrations and networking opportunities artisan millers and bakers will share their passion and conviction that the local mill will again be at the centre of the village community in 21st Century Britain.

We’ll be there – so will Dan Lepard – maybe we’ll see you?

Conference flyer here. Draft programme here.

This is an easy to make, very reliable, easy to freeze and popular bap using pesto ideal for picnics and packed-lunches. It is based on an article by Dan Lepard author of The Handmade Loaf, for Soft White Baps and adapted to include pesto after having tasted something similar in a bakery in The Shambles in York some years ago. I used a basil pesto and a handful of dried basil, but Dan’s recipe lends itself to other flavours such as cheese and onion, or cheese and rosemary, olives and rosemary – fresh if you have it. Coriander pesto also works well: experiment.
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