Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

Baking sourdough bread has become so easy that it feels effortless.

It doesn’t matter if I’m sick or tired or grumpy or overwhelmed (don’t worry, I’m not), there is always bread. It’s literally just minutes of hands-on work. But effortless doesn’t, shouldn’t and mustn’t mean joyless. To this day, thousands of loaves in, I still get a thrill when I lift the lid off an enamel roaster and see the risen loaf.

Unlike other household “chores”, baking bread has never become mundane or boring. I’m not quite sure why that is, but I suspect a large part of it lies in the enthusiasm with which the loaves are consumed.

These days I hardly ever do a small bake anymore – it feels wasteful to run Bobby II for a single loaf. My standard batch produces six slow-proved high hydration loaves for a total flour cost of $2.35 and $1 in electricity. This gives us two loaves to eat and four to share with our lovely neighbours. How cool is it that so much food can be produced for less than the cost of a takeaway coffee?

Last week I picked up a torn 12.5kg bag of bakers flour off the clearance pallet at Southern Cross supplies for $5, so the six loaves below cost me just 81c (technically $0.8072) in flour and flossy salt. I was pretty excited about that…

Five of those loaves went out to neighbours, fabric wrapped of course…

You see, whilst baking sourdough makes me happy, it’s the sharing of it that brings me joy. Which is why I cheerfully bake twice a week, rather than simply stocking up the freezer once a month.

Of course, it’s also hard to beat a chicken and mayo sandwich with backyard lettuce on freshly baked bread…

Last week, Big Boy’s old school friend Gabby moved into an apartment around the corner. We’ve known him since he was nine years old and it was with great excitement that we dropped around a furoshiki-wrapped loaf as a housewarming gift. He didn’t have a knife or a plate at that stage, so I suspect he just ate it like a caveman…

The following evening, the indigo cloth came back wrapped around a six-shot Negroni cocktail in a jar (I love that The Screaming Mongoose unpacked his cocktail shaker before his cutlery)…

I suspect it’s contraindicated, but I’m sure it helped with the shocking head cold I had at the time…

. . . . .

If you’d like to bake and share, you might be interested in our basic yeasted bread tutorial or, if you have access to some starter, the basic sourdough tutorial and the overnight sourdough tutorial. Or try our step by step focaccia for 23 year olds – it’s the perfect treat to take to a party!

Sorry folks, I don’t have any dried Priscilla starter at the moment. I’ll let you know when I have more to share!

It’s International Scone Week!

I was keen to participate in Tandy’s round up, but with the imminent arrival of family, I wasn’t sure if I’d have time. Then it occurred to me that if I could make pastry in a food processor, maybe scones might work as well.

I was very chuffed with how these turned out – they didn’t rise as well as gently handled dough, but they were tender and delicious nonetheless. Here’s how I reworked our old recipe:

• 300g (2 cups) plain (AP) flour
• 8g (2 generous teaspoons) baking powder
• pinch of fine sea salt
• 75g (5 US tablespoons) unsalted butter
• 50g (¼ cup) caster (superfine) sugar
• 125ml (½ cup) milk*
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice*
• 1 large free range egg
• 1 egg extra, for glazing

*The original recipe uses buttermilk but I didn’t have any, so I substituted milk and lemon juice. Stir the juice into the milk and let it stand for a couple of minutes before using.

1. Preheat the oven to 190C or 175C with fan. In the large bowl of a food processor, pour in the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Pulse to combine. There’s no need to sift anything. Add the cold butter, cut into small pieces, and pulse again until combined. The texture should be similar to fine bread crumbs.

2. Stir together the milk and juice, then whisk in the egg. Add the liquid into the food processor bowl and pulse very briefly until everything just comes together.

3. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured bench and very gently shape into a thick rectangle. Cut into six scones and lay them in a parchment lined tin.

4. Brush the tops with beaten egg yolk and bake for 20 – 25 minutes until risen and golden. If possible, eat while hot, smothered with butter and berry jam…

These were so quick and easy that I’ll probably make them this way from now on. I didn’t have to sift flour, or rub in butter, or dust a cutter, or clean up a huge mess at the end. So…are you baking scones this week too?