Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

… A recipe for lovely Jane @ The Shady Baker…

After the success of our Dirty Granny loaf, I’ve taken to throwing all sorts of things into my sourdough starter. The latest was half a can of flat Guinness beer (the other half having been added to a beef stew the night before).

The resultant brew was dark and malty…

I added the starter to a high hydration dough made with Tania’s luxurious Buratto flour and threw in a large spoonful of treacle for good measure.

Here’s the formula:

Starter: feed a small portion of ripe sourdough starter with 250g Guinness beer (mine was flat, and  cold from the fridge) and 150g bakers flour. Stir well and cover until ripe and bubbly.

Dough:

• 300g Guinness-fed starter
• 650g water
• 1kg Buratto or bakers flour
• 30g treacle
• 19g fine sea salt

This quantity made four small loaves, which I baked for 40 minutes (20mins at 220C with fan and the remainder of the time at 175C with fan).  The crust was firm and the crumb tender.  The flavour improved with resting overnight…

Folks, I bake a lot of bread, so I know this is a big call, but I think this one might be my new favourite. I adore its slightly sweet, malty taste and the chewy but tender crumb. It’s vaguely reminiscent of pumperknickel bread, and the perfect match to Manchego cheese and antipasto…

Definitely the best use for half a can of flat beer!

Edit: Have a look at Clare’s Ginger Beer and Honey loaf

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Overnight, the weather turned cold.

We switched on the gas heater, pulled out jumpers and slippers, and started hunting around for ingredients to make a warm dessert.

On the bench was half a loaf of stale sourdough, destined for the worm farm. It was the perfect base for an impromptu bread and butter pudding! I also had a little fresh ricotta leftover from lunch, treacle, and a few eggs from our diminishing supply…

• Half a sourdough fruit loaf
• Treacle
• Unsalted butter
• Golden raisins (optional)
• 4 large free range eggs
• 450ml milk (we used UHT)
• 120g fresh ricotta
• 110g (½ cup) vanilla sugar (or use plain sugar and some vanilla extract)
• a generous splash of Calvados brandy
• Vanilla sugar for topping

1.  Cut the bread up into slices – I left the crust on, but you could cut it off if you wished. Butter one side of each slice.

2. Grease a baking dish (I used two small ones) and drizzle a tablespoon or more of treacle over the base.  Arrange a layer of bread over the bottom of the dishes, butter side up.  Scatter with a few raisins, then place another layer of butter-side-up bread over the top. Chop the bread up as needed to try and fit it into the dish – mine ended up with a few small bits sticking out at odd angles.

3. In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, ricotta, Calvados and the ½ cup of vanilla sugar.  Ladle the mixture over the top of the bread until the dishes are quite full and the bread is soaked.  Don’t worry if the bits of ricotta float, it will all cook down in the end. Leave for at least 30 minutes, pushing the bread down every 10 minutes or so to help it soak up the liquid. Preheat oven to 175C (160C with fan).

4. Place the dishes on a baking tray (to catch any drips), sprinkle vanilla sugar over the bread, then bake in the oven for 40 – 50 minutes, or until golden brown (as I’d baked mine in smaller dishes, they only needed 40 minutes).  Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 10 – 15 minutes before serving.

It’s certainly not the most attractive bread and butter pudding I’ve ever made, but it might be the most delicious. The stale sourdough didn’t go mushy during baking, and the top layer was deliciously crispy. It wasn’t overly sweet, with the Calvados and treacle adding a grown-up, dark caramel flavour, and the ricotta contributing a lovely richness to the dish.

Isn’t it fabulous when a whole lot of leftovers destined for the worms and chooks ends up as something so tasty?

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“So…what can I bring?”

“Just  bring yourself, don’t go to any trouble!”

“No really, I have to bring something..”

. . . . .

These days I don’t ask anymore.

I take bread – all my friends know I’m going to arrive with a loaf or two, and many now plan their menus accordingly.

Usually it’s a sourdough loaf, but lately it’s been our giant slab of sourdough focaccia, baked in the tray that came with our 90cm Smeg oven. I took this to Lorraine’s book launch (along with these ciabatta loaves) and it was more than enough bread for sixty people.

I’ve written up a version of the focaccia recipe before, but if you have a large oven and would like to try our supersized model, here’s the formula (instructions are here):

• 440g low hydration sourdough (80%) starter (fed at a ratio of 80g water to 100g bakers flour). Starter should be ripe and bubbly before you start.
• 750g water
• 150g extra virgin olive oil
• 1100g bread/bakers flour
• 1½ teaspoons dried yeast
• 22g fine sea salt
• Extra virgin olive oil, for drizzling
• Maldon Sea Salt Flakes, for scattering on top

The only downside of this focaccia slab is that it’s tricky to transport…

The book launch was a blast! You can read all about it on Lorraine’s, Charlie’s and Julie’s blogs. And buy the book, it’s a fantastic read (I have the Kindle version, as well as a hard copy).

What do you like to take to a dinner party?

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A couple of nights ago, Big Boy cooked dinner.

It’s not something he does very often, but under the watchful eye of his father, he produced an amazing Mexican-inspired dish of mince and beans, flavoured with smokey paprika, Italian tomatoes and (unbeknownst to me) a decent splash of my vintage port (sigh).

Anyway, I digress. Dinner was so good that we all ate until we couldn’t move. And as a result, I didn’t finish drinking my bottle of Dirty Granny apple cider.

Later that night, I was looking at the remnants of a bowl of sourdough starter (there always seems to be a bit of starter leftover after baking), trying to decide if it was worth keeping.  On a whim, I emptied my half bottle of cider into the bowl, and stirred in a roughly equal quantity of bakers flour.  The bowl fizzed up, then settled into a thick, creamy coloured soup.

The next morning, I awoke to find a very bubbly, sweet smelling bowl of starter. I knocked together a dough comprising just four ingredients:

• 300g Dirty Granny sourdough starter
• 550g water
• 1kg bakers flour
• 18 fine sea salt

For instructions on how to make the bread, please refer to our Bread #101: Basic Sourdough Tutorial.

The three loaves released an amazing aroma after just five minutes in the oven, and the finished bread was redolent of cider and apples. I’m quite amused that my Dirty Granny sourdough loaf looks like a breast, complete with nipple…

The crumb was tender and quite closed (which is not surprising, as the dough was reasonably stiff), with a delicious, subtly sweet flavour…

Inspired by a conversation I’d had recently with Lorraine, I used the loaf for chicken sandwiches, made with leftover poached meat from our simple soup recipe, a half batch of our speedy mayonnaise, a few leaves of homegrown cos lettuce and cracked black pepper…

It was the perfect mid-week lunch to eat sitting outside on the deck…

One of the things I love most about breadmaking is that I’m often able to incorporate leftover bits and pieces into a loaf. I might never throw a half bottle of cider away again!

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