Bread

One of my Christmas presents was a special treat; after unwrapping random items including a pizza peel and a baking stone it was revealed that I was to receive a baking lesson from Danny at Sour Flour.

I love bread. I can quite happily consume a whole loaf at a single sitting. My favourite has been the sweet batard from Acme Bread; I tend not to like wholeflour breads or breads with additives (walnuts etc.) as much as a really good simple loaf.

So I've tried baking bread a few times before, not really with a recipe but more just aping what I saw friends do when they baked and I've never been much impressed with the results. So given the chance to actually sit down and learn to do it properly I was all for it.

You can research Sour Flour yourselves, but basically Danny gave up his job to bake bread and give it away. I know, it's a San Francisco thing. He came round to our house just after New Year to walk me through baking bread. Although he offered to host I though it would be good to learn in my own kitchen since that's where I'm going to be baking.

He came armed with flour, a starter, and miscellaneous hardware. While we plied him with leftover New Year sparkling wine he walked me though baking a couple of baguettes. We worked out the hydration formula, mixed started, flour, water and salt (using my crappy scales), left it to proof in the bathroom (with the shower running, to accelerate things), shaped it, left it again, then baked it.

Baking was fun. Trying to recreate the environment of a commercial bread oven in a home cooker involves using a baking stone and a cast iron skillet, cranking the oven as high as it will go (545°F) and letting the stone preheat for a while. Then it's all action for a minute—get the bread on the peel, get it off the peel onto the stone and throw a cup of water into the skillet to blast into steam and then slam the door shut before too much heat escapes.

We'd rushed the bread, but it was ok. And Danny left me some starter to cultivate on my own. But now I'm on my own; update to come…