Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

It all started when Emma mentioned that she’d been baking huge sourdough loaves.

I sent her a little bit of Priscilla in December, and since then her baby starter, Miss Smilla, has been going gangbusters. Emma was making our overnight sourdough recipe, but baking the whole batch as a single large loaf. I’d never tried anything like that, so I was keen to give it a go.

First I texted our baker friend Craig for advice – baking times would obviously have to be adjusted to accommodate the much larger loaf. Craig’s advice was to bake for a total of between 75 – 90 minutes, with the first 50 minutes in a covered pot.

Thankfully I had the 36cm enamel goose roaster…

The end result was the photo at the top – I baked the entire 1918g dough as a single loaf. It worked brilliantly – I dubbed it Breadalapooza and tweeted photos of it to my mates.

And then…we were off! Jason picked up the ball and ran with it, knocking up an almost FIVE kilo dough (he’d meant to make a three kilo one but his maths was out) which baked into the most amazing ginormous spaceship. You can read all about it in his post here…

J’s loaf turned out so well that I was inspired to try sizing mine up, so I mixed together a three kilo batch of dough and let it rise overnight. I shaped it the following morning and put it into the cold roaster to rise while the oven preheated (Jason and I had both found manoeuvring a humungous dough into a blazing hot pan a little intimidating)…

In the pot to rise – it had half an hour or so to puff up before slashing and baking.

Just for the record, the dough baked covered at 245C with fan for 15 minutes, and then the temperature was lowered to 220C with fan for a further 35 minutes. At the 50 minute mark, the lid was removed and the temperature dropped to 175C with fan. I gave the loaf another 20 minutes in the pot, then finished it off for 20 minutes on the oven rack.

PRISZILLA was born! She was bigger than my head…

…and, as Pete kindly pointed out, my bust…

She filled the 36cm roaster completely…

Once cooled, I cut her straight down the middle and was absolutely delighted to find that she’d baked all the way through…

The ridged base on the roaster produced a lovely spiral bottom…

Just so much fun! The bread itself was very tasty, with an elastic crumb and a chewy, toothsome crust. I’m not quite sure what to do with three kilos of it, but I’ve learnt a great deal about sourdough baking through these experiments. And that’s really what it’s all about, isn’t it? ♥

Read Full Post »

Now that everyone’s madly baking sourdough, here’s a nice idea for using up any leftover loaves!

. . . . .

Whenever we have leftover sourdough, I slice it thinly and pop it into a 100C oven for two to three hours. We started doing this last year as a way of using up old bread, but it’s now become so popular, especially with Small Man, that I’ll often bake a loaf specifically with this in mind.

I recently watched Yotam Ottolenghi making Dakos – a popular Cretan dish comprising hard barley bread rusks topped with tomatoes and olive oil. I was inspired to try something similar with our “crunchy bread” (as it’s known here).

I started with really ripe baby plum tomatoes…

…and some of our marinated feta…

The hard rusks were drizzled with a little extra virgin olive oil…

…then topped with the tomatoes, a sprinkling of salt and pepper, a little dried oregano and small chunks of feta. A good drizzle of more extra virgin olive oil finished it off…

This is one of those dishes where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The dried out bread provides an essential crunch – I’ve tried this with regular sourdough toast and it just isn’t as addictive. The tomatoes have to be very ripe and the double drizzle of oil seems to add just the right mouthfeel. Serve with a spoon – you’ll need one to scoop up the topping as the bread cracks.

I’ve now eaten this for breakfast three mornings in a row! Drying out old sourdough in the oven sounds a bit boring, but it’s amazing what a versatile product we end up with as a result. It’s definitely a better thing to do with stale bread than feeding it to the chickens!

. . . . .

PS. A headsup to anyone after an enamel roaster to bake bread in – Peters of Kensington currently has them on sale for $27. But be quick, the blue ones have already sold out!

Read Full Post »

Have I ever mentioned that our neighbours are hilarious?

This was the text Liz sent me yesterday…

It all started a couple of weeks ago when another Liz, a very darling Bizzy one in Canberra, gave me a box of Aldi Luxury Butter Fudge for Christmas. It was so good that it didn’t make it to my IMK post this month, as it was eaten before I had a chance to photograph it.

Unlike the creamy fudge we were making a few years ago, this one was hard and crumbly. The ingredients listed on the box included salted butter and condensed milk, so when I wasn’t able to find any in the (ahem) three Aldi stores I visited, I thought I’d have a go at making my own. After all, I still had condensed milk leftover from the boozy concoctions we were making for Christmas.

Google turned up this brilliant recipe (photo at top) which, as you might have deduced from Liz’ text, was a huge hit with the neighbours. But it was a bit too sweet for me, so I tweaked the recipe just a little. I followed the methodology exactly, but reduced the sugar slightly and added salt. My final ingredients list was as follows:

• 1 x 395g can condensed milk
• 450g white sugar
• 120ml water
• 60g unsalted butter
• ½ – 1 teaspoon fine sea salt (to taste)
• 2 teaspoons homemade vanilla extract

I found I needed less cooking time than specified – my fudge was ready after about 20 minutes at a gentle boil. You’ll need to judge when it’s ready by colour – I’ve tried to match the true colour of the final fudge below so you that can use it as a guide if you’d like to.

Oh, and it helps to have an extra set of hands when it’s time to pour the molten lava into the lined tin – I managed to drop the pot, burn myself and make a mess of the top…

The end result was so delicious that it made me forget my limited capacity to consume milk – until I started to feel queasy. Ah well, quality checking is essential…

Pete prefers the sweeter original version – he not a fan of salted caramel flavours – but Big Boy and I loved the second batch…

This fudge is hard, crumbly and very moreish. I’d better ring the neighbours and invite them around for a taste testing!

Read Full Post »

The goose! The goose!

I was having a Mrs Cratchit moment. I’d never tasted goose before, but ever since watching A Muppet Christmas Carol, I’d desperately wanted to. Pete, whose mother had raised geese, was a little wary – he and his siblings have memories of dry, chewy meat which they’d all struggled to eat.

Apparently the secret is to roast a young goose. And our little bird at barely 3kg was certainly that. It had arrived frozen and spent three days defrosting in the fridge.

After some discussion on Christmas morning about the best cooking method (it didn’t fit in the Römertopf and by that time it was too late to buy oven bags), we decided to use our large 36cm Falcon enamel roaster (photo below is from the Peters website – my pot is now seriously grotty). The goose fit in perfectly…

I prepared the bird very simply – after washing, I tied the legs together, then pricked the skin thoroughly to ensure that it would release its fat as it roasted. I trimmed off the oil gland, then rubbed the dried skin with five spice powder and salt. Fresh rosemary, sage and a small garden lemon were tucked into the cavity, a little oil was rubbed over, and then the bird was placed breast down into the covered roaster.

The pot went into a preheated 180C oven for about two and a half hours (maybe a tad longer, I wasn’t paying close attention) – we basted regularly and poured off the fat as it accumulated. It then rested for a couple of hours prior to serving…

I used some of the stock and fat to flavour a simple stuffing, made with walnut bread crumbs, dried cranberries, sage leaves and onion…

The potatoes were peeled, cut into pieces and tossed in goose fat, then baked to golden…

We accompanied the meal with a fabulous caramelised onion rice that Pete created (I’ll write this up the next time he makes it), Charlie’s cranberry sauce, fried backyard snake beans and salad. But it was Christmas, and I didn’t remember to take any other photos.

Happily though, on Boxing Day I woke to find this precious jar of goose fat in my fridge…

Our three kilo goose was exactly the right size to feed seven hungry adults. Small Man declared it to be his new favourite bird and I have to agree with him – it was richly flavoured, tender and very moreish. This will definitely be a special occasion meal for us in future.

What did you eat for Christmas? And have you ever tried goose before?

Read Full Post »