Baking Sourdough at Denver Windmill

There's something incredibly romantic about baking bread inside a working windmill

Happy Birthday Mummy….. we finally went on Mum’s birthday treat 7 months after her birthday, to Denver Windmill. My mum is the best baker that I know, bakes all her bread, rolls, ciabattas and focaccias by hand and all taste amazing. BUT she has been stumped by Sourdough, even with the help of Hugh Fernley-Whistingstall’s ‘foolproof’ method. So being the determined woman that she is, she asked if she could have a class learning how to make the bread that has eluded her, for her birthday and the best bit was that I got to come along as well. I have had mixed results with bread… don’t think that my KitchenAid is particularly good at kneading, so I was keen to learn as well.

Martin (our teacher) was fantastic, explaining secret tricks to making better bread (any bread) which I shall be trying out this week – it’s called the ‘sponge method’ – too long to write in detail- you put a little of the flour, water and yeast to ferment over night, before adding to the rest of the mix and making bread as usual- this is a good link: http://www.videobread.com/tips8.htm

Anyway – we discussed the 2 methods to making the ‘sponge’ for sourdough – this is the bit where you attract ‘wild’ yeasts to your mixture and lactobacillus bacteria which provide the sour taste. We used a sponge from an accelerated method in which a small part of baker’s yeast is also added to kick start the fermentation. I also learned that it was important to add a bit of lemon juice to any breadmix as this adds ascorbic acid (Vit C) which helps the bread to develop a wonderful crumb.

I am going to make my sponge this week – so I will write how I do this later…

Martin gave us our ingredients and we got going:

Strong white flour – 375g
Salt – 10g
Warm Water (few drops of lemon juic added) – 300g
Rapeseed oil – 28g

Mix first, then add…

The leaven – Mixture of…

Wheat sourdough starter – 100g – (this is the bit that has fermented over days)
Strong white flour – 125g
Warm water – 75g

Mix all together and knead (pummel and stretch) on a floured surface (to stop the dough from sticking) for 10 mins – this seems like ages – put some music on to sing along to – should be 3-4 songs

Mum kneading...

Cover the dough and leave for 1 hour

Knock the dough back – punch it! – form the dough into the shape required – place onto a baking sheet coated with baking parchment, coer again and leave in a warm place for 3-5 hours until the dough has expanded. Dust the loaf and bake for 35 mins at 220C.

All the loaves ready to go into the oven.... how cool is the floured windmill logo!

I was so pleased with my loaf, especially considering my past attempts at bread….. Mum’s unfortunately cracked, as did many of the rye loaves, but I am sure that she will have another go this week.

Incredibly proud of my handmade loaf...

The best bit - taking home our bread...

Mum and I picked up some beautiful taramasalata from Waitrose and a new lemony Bistro salad that they were doing… a perfect late lunch after our wonderful day!

A celebration - sourdough bread and toast (even better), taramasalata and salad

How to impress your mother-in-law #2

Following the triumph of the Hummingbird Bakery’s Carrot cake, where I definitely won many brownie points… I knew I had to go one better! So after picking my bodyweight in blackcurrants from our garden, I decided to make this fantastic trifle from Nigel Slater’s ‘Kitchen Diaries’ (July 24th entry – also the date when I made it!).

I also had the last of our strawberries and blueberries to hand so I turned it into what I have called my ‘Summer Pudding Trifle’, but the credit has to go to Nigel for his ingenious way of topping the fruit using a combination of mascarpone custard (no cook), whipped cream and beaten egg whites. It seems like a large layer when you look at the trifle, but the flavours are in complete balance when eating and it is so light that you almost don’t consider the calories!

I should also say that I made this, the night before so that I could sleep well in the knowledge that once more I would be the best daughter-in-law (there is competition!) All my husband’s family thought this trifle was absolutely gorgeous, my brother-in-law had seconds larger than his firsts…. it is now added to my armoury of recipes which will be repeated again and again! It is a true summer stalwhart, combining two of my summer dessert favourites…..

Summer Pudding Trifle – adpated from ‘Nigel’s delightful trifle’ (Kitchen Diaries – Nigel Slater)

Fed 7 adults and 4 children (with seconds for some!) It’s a biggun’!

Layered up and ready to go!

2 madeira cakes (about 700g in total)
2 large eggs – separated
4 tblspns caster sugar
500g mascarpone cheese
4 drops vanilla extract
500ml whipping cream
sprig of blackcurrants to decorate

For the summer pudding layer – this could be altered to suit you but this is what I used:
blackcurrants – 750g
strawberries and bluberries to make up 200g
water – 8 tblspns
caster sugar – 4 tblspns

• Clean up all the fruit ready to cook (remove stalks) and put them in a saucepan with the sugar and water. Simmer for 7-10 mins on a low to moderate heat. Once there is lots of juice, remove from the heat
• Break the cake into small pieces and press into the bottom of your bowl. Spoon the fruit and their juices over the cake and leave to cool – the sponge should soak up the juices
• For the custard – mix the egg yolk and sugar well, then stir in the mascarpone and vanilla – see below

Marscapone custard - no cook - great temptation to scoff it all rather than putting it in the trifle!

• Then whip the cream until it is thick enough to lie in soft folds (not stiff peaks), then fold it lightly into the custard
• In a separate bowl, whisk up the eg whites until almost stiff and fold this into the mixture
• Top the cooled fruit with this gorgeous mixture, making sure that all fruit is covered.
• Decorate and refrigerate for at least an hour – mine was refrigerated for about 16 hours and was delicious!

Crowning glory - some blackcurrants and blackcurrant leaves from the garden

Lake District Delights – day #3. Too much good food in Keswick….

Another visit to the award winning Fitz park this morning to work up an appetite….. then it was off to Bryson’s for pastries which we took back to our apartment to share with Nana and Raroo. Have to admit that these are some of the best pastries I have ever had- especially the mixed fruit Danish – unbelievably good!

Bryson's bakery in the centre of Keswick

After a bit of shopping, it was off to Treeby and Bolton’s – we had to go there because it was my Dad’s favourite. Great food and although there was no children’s menu, they gave us a plate to share bits of our meals with Abbie… which she generally prefers anyway! Treeby and Bolton’s speciality as far as my Dad is concerned are there platters. You can choose between meat, fish and cheese – we tried both the meat and the fish – which were festooned with local goodies such as smoked salmon, mackerel, huge prawns, smoked duck, chorizo and sausage.  They were made for one hungry person as they also come with crusty bread, but can easily be shared.

Platters in Treeby and Bolton

After lunch it was off to Hope Park. Time for a spot of crazy golf and …

Yet another English Lakes ice cream!

Abbie and I did our own thing for dinner and I hastily rustled up an easy, but tasty bowl of pasta in our tiny kitchen.

The sauce is made by frying 4 rashers of smoked bacon with a clove of garlic (finely chopped). When sizzling and cooked, add a handful of freshly podded peas (I didn’t want to buy a bag of frozen for one week), and a splosh of double cream. Bubble for a few mins, chuck the pasta in and stir to combine. Serve with a sprinkling of grated parmesan.

Our tiny but well-resourced kichen

Abbie tucks in!

Luckily a long, hot climb up the Catbells followed the next day to ensure that we didn’t just go POP!

Lake District delights…. day 2

‘Sunday, Sunday here again.. tidy attire’…. not for us, though; we’re all about the outdoor clothing at the mo. After a blueberry and variety pack (compulsory on holidays) breakfast, we headed off to Fitz Park: a rightfully award-winning playground which boasts 3 areas for different age groups. The youngest is on sand, so you have the added benefit of being able to build castles at the same time!
Then it was off to Mirehouse… found out about this place from the Guardian travel where it was cited as a hidden gem… they were bang on! Imagine acres of gardens, secret paths, wooden forts, round huts, assault courses for all ages and an amazing tea room boasting home-made fare and the best lemon meringue pie I have ever eaten! Abbie became obsessed with ‘Pooh sticks’ as there are many bridges crossing the babbling Brooks that run through he property; simple pleasures and enough to keep us all entertained for the best part of our day. There is also an osprey lookout, but we had run out of time….. All this will set you back 3 50 per adult, pre-schoolers are free and children go for 1 50. A bargain! Don’t know how we’ll top it!

You have to have a variety pack on holiday!

Adventuring in Fitz Park

Mirehouse

One of the attractions on our walk at Mirehouse

The Mirehouse Teahouse - this is Welsh Rarebit topped muffiins with a side salad and a green bean chutney so good that I bought a jar!

Happy munchers

The ice cream that I have been raving about

A lovely view over Bassenthwaite

It was good to wander in the shade beside the cool streams

Lake District finds day #1 – Keswick, ice cream and Booths

Hooray, we made it….. 300+ miles later and we are here in Keswick! Arrived just in time for a delicious picnic lunch with Nana and Raroo; salami from the market, local sheep’s cheese and a fabulous local blue (will find out names and add to comments), crusty bread and salad.
We then left Dad to have a rest as Abbie was insisting that we find a lake…. ‘why is it called the Lake District…. there are lots of mountains, but I can’t see any lakes!’ So a visit to nearby Derwentwater was a must… pink-footed geese were a bonus.
We then returned into Keswick to pick up our keys and found a superb ice cream shop on the way, serving ‘English Lakes’ ice cream. Some great flavours to try… Thunder and Lightning- vanilla with toffee sauce and honeycomb pieces, Tiger Tiger – chocolate, vanilla and mandarin ice creams swirled together. Abbie chose ‘Death by chocolate’…. no surprise there! Wished I hadn’t still been full from lunch or I would have also enjoyed a cone…. maybe today?!
After letting ourselves in to our accommodation, we popped to Booth’s…. an amazing supermarket serving all kinds of foodie delights. Just kept to the basics today (sunflower bread, milk, thick yoghurt with rhubarb/raspberry puree) but will definitely return many times this week! It reminds me of Waitrose…. but with more local produce – basically it’s awesome! Also looking forward to exploring Keswick further….. we may go to the incredibly friendly rugby club for lunch today, before heading over to Mirehouse… a little-known about gem apparently!

Off we go!! Girls’ holiday to the Lake District…. with a stop off at the OK Diner!

OK…. don’t judge…. we’re on holiday! Abbie and I left yesterday morning for the Lake District, with a visit to Auntie Kath, Uncle Matt and Libby on the way, in Manchester. Jon and I had been wanting to try the OK Diner ever since we passed it on a previous trip, so I thought this would be the perfect oportunity for a lunch stop on our journey.

The OK Diner models itself on a 50’s American Diner and serves standard diner fare of big breakfasts, burgers and grills. The adult menu is really varied and I greatly enjoyed my grilled chicken dish. The children’s menu has lots of options, although the healthy choices will probably not be chosen as they are not exciting enough to compete with the salt/fat laden dishes on offer. Abbie went for hot dog and chips option and added loads of tomato ketchup as you can see……

Lunch is served!

Then for the dessert choices -ice cream cone, a banana or pancakes and syrup. Much to my horror, Abbie went for the carb laden latter option! And I contemplated spending 3 more hours in a car with a sugar-filled child… which went rapidly down-hill when we had to find a replacement charger for my phone on the M62! Although the food at OK diner was incredibly ‘child-friendly’, it wasn’t particularly friendly to your child – maybe some vegetables could be given…….

This was the start of the syrup addition - I had to remove it from her in the end!

Oh well….. a lovely stay with our friends in Manchester! Keswick tomorrow – which I’m reliably informed is ‘foodie heaven’. JOY!

Chicken Caesar salad (Quorn Caesar salad for Abbie)

Abbie is sometimes a bit funny about meat and has started to stage protests at the table…. wish we had never watched Bambi! Venison is out now for her, when previoulsy she loved it. We have had some very frank conversations and she has a great understanding of why we only buy free-range birds, responsibly sourced fish and ‘happy’ pigs/cows/lambs, but today was a protest day….. so I got the quorn pieces out.

I was priveledged to take part in the trial of Quorn when I was a young teenager (my Mum had a friend who worked for Marlow Foods and the fungus was discovered only a few roads away from our house); I can tell you that they have come a long way from the strange lumps that were delivered in a huge freezer box. Abbie and I often eat Quorn products… favourite has to be the meatballs. I want to be clear to her that if she is not to eat meat, she must get her protein in some form. Luckily she loves beans and tofu, so the thought that she might give up meat doesn’t terrify me…. like any parent would think it would be an inconvenience.

The Quorn version....

We eat this salad quite often and so now I have begun to adapt it to suit us! Originally the recipe came from ‘How to Eat’ by Nigella Lawson and I love her idea to make potato (rather than bread) croutons. For quorn caesar salad, substitute chicken with one handful quorn pieces, cook according to packet instructions.
Chicken Caesar Salad – adapted from ‘How to Eat’ by Nigella Lawson
150g potatoes – diced into 2cm cubes
Squeezy garlic and olive oil or substitue for Garlic oil
1 large chicken breast – cooked
1-2 large head of Romaine lettuce, chopped
Parmesan/ pecorino – grated to give about 2 handfuls (15g)
1 egg
few drops Worcestershire sauce
1/2 lemon
Anchovy sauce (or 2 anchovy fillets in oil)

• To make the croutons, mix the potato cubes with 1 tblspn oil and a squeeze of garlic (or 1tblspn garlic oil) – roast in a preheated 200C oven for 30-40 mins (check after 25 and give a toss around) – cool for about 10mins before putting on salad
• 20 mins after putting potatoes in, Boil water for eggs
• Tear lettuce into mouth sized pieces and toss with a tblspn olive oil, seasoning as you go with s&p
• When water is boiling, put egg in for 1 min.
• Back to your lettuce: Shake over Worcestershire sauce, squeeze 1/2 lemon, few drops anchovy sauce and break egg in – toss
• Add 3/4 of the cheese and toss again.
• Top with the chicken/quorn, croutons and a final sprinkling of cheese
• Bring to the table immediately! You don’t want the lettuce to wilt…

....and the chicken version!

Roast salmon salad – another way with new potatoes

This salad came about from one of those days where I popped to the supermarket after work and picking Abs up from school. I asked her what she fancied and she said ‘salmon’. We found a new product… honey roasted salmon, so I decided we would make a salad with it, using up some of the copious potatoes hiding under the earth in our garden. All the items came together as I walked around two aisles (veg and dairy) and needed little prep at home; essential for me on a Tuesday night!

A quick pick-up from the supermarket

Honey-roast salmon salad – serves 2 adults, 1 child
1 pack honey-roast salmon (hot smoked salmon would work here too)
Pack watercress
a little oil and vinegar
2 spring onions
200g new potatoes
Greek yoghurt and chopped dill to top

• Cook new potatoes (half if large) in boiling salted water for 15-20 mins – check by sticking in a fork to see if they’re cooked – drain and leave to cool slightly
• Remove the large stems from the watercress and place in 3 pasta bowls or on 3 plates – drizzle with a little oil and vinegar and toss gently
• Break the salmon up into flakes and add to each plate
• Share out the potatoes between plates
• Thinly slice the spring onions and sprinkle over the salad
• Top with a dollop of greek yoghurt and a small sprinkle of finely chopped dill

An easy mid-week meal

As you can see we also had a side dish of fresh peas… I would add peas to this salad another time, for a bit of added sweetness.

.... and a happy diner!

Strawberry picking…. so many we made Jam!

Strawberries were plentiful today at Groveland PYO so we picked two large punnets full. Abbie was delighted that my instructions were to pick small ones – this meant that any large berries got consumed immediately!!

A particularly large one...

So to the jam – it takes a while to make because of the leaving stage. We started before lunch and did the boiling at about 4pm.. I will take you through the stages of how we made our soft set strawberry jam. Abbie helped before the boiling stage, but for safety reasons, she didn’t help when the jam was boiling hot.

Soft-set Strawberry Jam

You need:
Strawberries – good to have at least a pound/1/2kg of them
Sugar – I use a 1/3:2/3 mixture of granulated sugar and preserving sugar to get a soft-set rather than hard set (a trick I learned from one of our matrons at school)
1 lemon per 2lbs strawberries
Large pan with lid
Jam jars (I’ll talk about how I sterilize them later)
If you have it… a funnel is helpful to get the boiling hot jam into the jars
2 saucers – put into the freezer

1.Remove all the stalks from the strawberries and put them into a container

Abbie demoing what your strawberry should look like

2. Weigh your strawberries – you will need an equal quantity of sugar – we had 3lb of strawberries, I used 2lbs preserving sugar and 1lb gran sugar

How many strawberries have you got?

3. Combine sugar and strawberries in your large pan and leave to stand, with lid on to deter flies, for about 4 hours. This helps to macerate the strawberries. I don’t chop my strawberries up as I like to squish them onto toast, but you could do for a more even distribution.

The two sugars we used

Before the cooking stage, begin sterilizing your jam jars – there are different ways to do this; I put mine in the dishwasher and run it on the hottest setting. To the cooking….
4. Heat up the strawberry/sugar mixture, stirring to help dissolve the sugar.
5. Keep the jam on a rolling boil, reducing the heat underneath, for 5 minutes (so that it is boiling, but doesn’t rise too far up the pan)
6. Add lemon juice and boil for a further 10 mins
7. Test the set of your jam – take a saucer from the freezer and remove a little of the jam on a teaspoon, put onto the saucer to rapidly cool it. For a soft-set, the jam should crinkle when you push your finger into it.
8. If it doesn’t crinkle, put the saucer back in the freezer keep boiling for 5 mins and then test using the other saucer.
9. Repeat this until you are happy with the set.
10. Cool slightly – maybe until your jars are sterilized – and then fill up the jars (be careful), screw the lids on and leave it until you need it.

Jam for the next 6-12 months!

Abbie’s patch – all change in the garden!!

OK, I admit it… I was wrong (this does not happen often!) When Abbie said she wanted to plant a pink fur apple potato in her 4 inches of soil, I scoffed at the idea. And then we dig it up (upon her insistance as the flowers had died)… around the base of the plant were 15 beautiful and large salad potatoes. Then to add insult to injury, I think that my plants might be ready so we dig one up – these potatoes are about the size of my thumbnail. Abbie says… ‘Does this mean I win, Mummy?’ Had to admit that yes, yes it did!

Abbie bragging about the size of her potatoes

Once the potato plant was out and we had picked the last of the pea pods, it was time to rejuvinate the patch. So in have gone, 2 climbing French bean plants up the third leg of the wigwam, 4 bok choi and 4 kale plants. These were ravaged by slugs on day 1 (after the photo) so now I have put slug pellets down. I have previously avoided doing this as Abbie tends to pick and eat, but now we have talked about washing everything first. I have used beer traps in previous years and these are great, but had no cheap beer to hand and was desperate to protect what the slugs had left.

Book choi at front, kale and French beans on left

Now to the peas – I cooked the last of our peas and a few small broad beans for 1 min in salted water and added them to garden salad leaves. A quick balsamic/olive oil/chopped mint dressing and we had a great salad to celebrate the end of a fabulous crop! If anyone has any ideas about how/if I can grow another crop now, please let me know!

Summer minted pea salad