A fortnight ago I received a comment from W. This was remarkable because it was the first comment from someone who isn’t either family or a close friend. It’s starting to feel like I’ve got a proper blog going on here.
W and I have been corresponding back and forth and she has generously lent me two interesting books on the subject of baking.
I’ve started with Pain de Campagnard from The Bread Bible. This is a wholemeal and rye loaf built from a three day old sponge starter.
Kneadyguy’s Pain de Campagnard
My review
A floor tile of uneatable crap!
End review
Sigh, this was meant to be a normal round rustic loaf. My dough was just very, very wet. I couldn’t knead it, fold it or shape it. It regressed into a gloopy puddle whenever I tried to handle it. You can see from the picture what happened when I put it onto the baking tray.
I’m guessing that I made a mistake somewhere with the amounts. It’s an American recipe so everything is measured in those God damned American cup measures.
Perhaps I could pretend it is a very large homemade biscuit.
11 responses so far ↓
w. // May 3, 2008 at 4:11 pm |
Loooooollll when you said it looked awful I figured you were exaggerating! I guess not.
I wanna see the boomerang one though! And also the (pretty) foccacia.
On the subject of aesthetically pleasing bread, I was so excited by my stupid brioche that I started slicing it and tearing it apart without remembering to take any photos :\
Kelly // May 4, 2008 at 2:09 am |
That’s hilarious! Reminds me of the time our friend came over to Zion Rd to bake a chocolate cake from a box. The instructions said to add 1 cup. She took our measuring mug (which measures 4 cups, marked on the side, which she obviously didn’t see) and filled it up “one cup what!”, and when we baked it, it just didn’t seem to solidify. We ended up having chocolate pudding. yum!
James // May 6, 2008 at 5:19 am |
Ahaha, that looks shit.
I hope this comment doesn’t mean anything less to you being from family or a close friend
blh // May 9, 2008 at 5:04 pm |
i think you are right about the weird “cup” measurements- they are hard to interpret and since baking really is a type of chemistry/alchemy experiment you need to know the exact proportions.
…but that photo is Funny!!!!
James // May 9, 2008 at 7:12 pm |
What’s with the candles Alec? Were you initiating the bread brick into some sort of sinister cult or exercising demons from it or what?
kneadyguy // May 12, 2008 at 9:42 am |
W: Thank you for the present of some brioche. It’s been a while since we had some tasty bread around the house so it was a thoughful present.
My foccacia. and the various other mishapen loaves are stored away in the freezer. I’m not brave enough to defrost them yet.
Kelly: Sounds delicious. Chocolate must be more forgiving than bread.
Brian: Cheers Brian
James: Yeah, the candle thing is a bit weird. When I started writing this post, I thought it would be funny to pretend I was Jewish and had cooked some unleavened bread for the Passover. I read through my first draft and the Jewish stick was really lame, so I decided to just go with being lame and leave out the Jewish bit.
Dominique // June 3, 2008 at 3:38 pm |
You have an Obelix mug! How cool! I want one of those!
Wife // June 23, 2008 at 10:04 am |
OI! It’s way too quiet here. Make me pizza and blog about it!
Saffry // July 7, 2008 at 10:48 am |
This is absolutely hilarious.
Saffry // July 7, 2008 at 10:49 am |
And I totally understand the pains of having everything in American mesurements.
kneadyguy // July 10, 2008 at 10:10 am |
Thanks Saffry,
American cups, commonwealth cups, tea cups, bats in double ff cups. I just get confused.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/norfolk/7496923.stm