A few months ago, gripped by baking fever, I purchased Mary Berry's Baking Bible. I quickly decided to embark upon a mission to bake everything in the book, and turn myself from an occasional baker into a bit of an expert. My Grandad Ern was a Master Baker by trade; the man responsible for introducing Danish Pastries to England in fact, and I wish it had occurred to me to spend more time learning from him, rather than simply enjoying the fruits of his effortless labours. This project is almost a way of making amends for that; I'd like to follow in his footsteps (if not in my career, at least as a hobby) and continue the proud heritage of baking in my family.
I credit my friend Rachel with the idea to write a blog about my baking exploits, hoping that there will be more successes than failures as I attempt all 213 of the Queen of Baking's recipes.
So as not to bore the husband with a monotonous diet of sponges, followed by weeks of biscuits, I've decided to tackle the recipes by selecting the first bake from each chapter, followed by the second recipe and so on. I'm not going to pick and choose; I'm determined to face my baking demons and learn how to do everything baking-related, even if the consequences are disastrous!
Everything will be photographed, with comment about how I found baking it, and a husband rating (to be taken with a pinch of salt as he has a very selective cake-tooth).


Saturday 17 November 2012

30. Quick Granary Rolls

This has been my first real baking disaster, and I'm determined to include everything in this blog! I intend to have another go at this, but at the time I vowed "well, that's it! That's that recipe done!" Basically, this picture shows how far I got. Note the greased baking sheets in the background; note the 'dough' in the bowl. It was more like a lumpy Yorkshire Pudding batter than a bread dough! I was furious, mostly with the recipe, but partly with myself for being in so much of a rush that common baking sense didn't kick in. Clearly, there is too much liquid. There is a massive flaw in the recipe, which instructed me to add 'about 450ml each of tepid milk and water, mixed.' I read over and over that after my disaster, even got my husband to read it. There's only one way to interpret it: 900ml of liquid in total. What, after reading other recipes, it meant however, was that 225ml of each liquid should be mixed to make 450ml in total - and even that's pretty wet for bread. Because the method advised to pour the liquid in a continuous stream, I didn't pause to think about how wet the dough was going; only realising that disaster had struck when I got my hands in at the end. There was no way this was going to be kneaded to form a smooth dough! I had two options: add more flour and salvage it, or chuck it away. I threw a massive wobbly and did the latter, swearing profusely as I did so. I just had visions of potentially wasting even more of my ingredients if I added more flour, so I thought it best to give it up as a bad job.
I've read the blogs of others doing this project and the same thing happened to them; it's an obvious fault with the recipe. I shall attempt to make these at some point soon, doing a bit of research on what the quantities of liquid ought to be first.
Watch this space...
 
 
June 2013: revisiting the rolls! I always intended to bake these properly, and a quick flick through the book helped me out with the quantity of liquid. The recipe is very straightforward, and I managed to make these while the baby slept in her bouncy chair in the kitchen. The dough was still quite sticky and took a fair bit of kneading to get it 'smooth', but I felt happy with the texture of the rolls and managed to get them to a fairly uniform size. I'm not usually very good at this, but obviously there are issues with the baking if there's an assortment of sizes! The hardest part was wrestling with the cling film and oiling it before covering the rolls. I really hate cling film. For all it's great uses, it's an absolute sod to handle! Anyway, I popped the rolls into a warmed oven to prove, in the absence of anywhere suitably warm in the house. I left them until a convenient time arose for baking (working around the baby) and was pleased that they only took 10-15 minutes. It meant that I could have one for my lunch. I do wonder if I over-proved them though, because they really increased in size (although I suppose they only doubled, as per the recipe), and they also got really bubbly. I think this is normally where 'knocking back' is done in bread-making, to bash some of the air out, but there was no instruction to do this so I left them as they were. I gave them 12 minutes to bake, a little bit less than the recipe advises, and gave them a tap. They sounded hollow and were a nice colour, so I was happy with that. There was a difference in colour depending on which shelf of the oven they were baked on, but that's to be expected and they were all baked sufficiently. I was really please when I cut one open - I can't think of anything wrong with the texture and 'crumb'. I do feel insecure about my bread-making; it's quite unfamiliar territory for me really. I wish I'd had more lessons from Grandad so I knew what to expect from each process. But this is why I'm doing this project, to learn more about baking. At the end of the day, if it looks and tastes good, then that's good enough. Unless I become a pro that is!
Baker's verdict: really easy to make and very tasty. I thought they looked lovely cooling on the rack.
Husband rating: 8/10 - good bread rolls. Made nice sandwiches; nice with butter on.
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