One-off Challenge 17: Learn To Bake Bread

It's the first week of May and I'm thoroughly in the "oh god, I've got eleven more months of doing this ridiculous shit" doldrums that comes with any lifestyle change. (New Year's resolutions, I'm looking at you.) So let's take a break from long-term challenges and tick off our first one-off challenge: learn to bake bread.

This challenge is courtesy of...

Emmy, who gets genuine thanks for this one. It falls in that sweet spot of interesting, useful and something I never would have bothered doing otherwise. 

Let's bake!

The challenge

After almost no research at all, I decided to make a rustic (i.e. not in a loaf tin) wholemeal loaf. After a fractionally larger amount of research, I chose this recipe from Waitrose. (Based mostly on the fact it only had four ingredients.) I then singularly failed to find any strong wholemeal bread flour at any of the supermarkets near my office. Eventually, I found where the bakers of the old town shop, kitted myself up, and went home to bake.

Attempt 1

To start with I followed the recipe exactly. It turns out to be surprisingly satisfying making bread. There's something very kinaesthetically pleasing about the warm dough mixture and the kneading process. I thought the 15 minutes kneading would feel like forever, but it flew by. Plus, it was really good exercise for challenge 7!



An hour to prove (also very satisfying to come back to a self-inflated loaf), then a half hour in the oven and we have ourselves...





A rather worthy lump of bread. 

It wasn't bad as such, just a touch heavy and rather bland. It was the knit-your-own-lentils of bread. We ate a fair amount of it as we didn't have any other bread, but I wasn't heartbroken when the last fifth went stale. 
Dough, proving.

Attempt 2

Five minutes less kneading, salted rather than unsalted butter and a half teaspoon more table salt made this loaf better, but still not right. The crust was a little too hard still and the bread not quite flavoursome enough.
Ready to bake

Attempt 3

This one had a teaspoon of sugar added, plus it was left to prove for an extra 30 minutes. Then I threw it at the floor, just catching it before it hit the deck, resulting in a rather odd shaped loaf. (This step was not entirely intentional.) 

Lastly, I stuck a bowl of hot water into the oven while baking to soften the crust. The result... 

Tasty bread! In fact, it was so good, Xavi insisted on taking it to Grandpa's house because "Papa wuv bwead!" 
Ready to eat!
Challenge complete!

Will I be doing it again?

Hell yes. I've got white and wholemeal bread flour now and will be branching out into 50/50 bread in an attempt to find something the big kids like. This one is definitely a keeper skill! 

Long-term Challenge Updates

French words "learned" (according to the memrise app):  187

Daily photos taken? Yep.

I am currently reading: Nothing. I've finished The Red Tent, which I enjoyed but thought ended weak. 

"Cheat" days on food since last week: none, but I suspect I'm starting to allow just a little more in my daily unhealthy snack, so need to keep an eye on that. 

"Cheat" days on exercise: a couple again. Still struggling with this one. 

Favourite drawing of the week: the scroll.
The silhouette isn't great, but I'm pleased with the rest.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

One-Off Challenge 22: Skinny Dip

Image
One of my rules of my challenges is that they're suspended when I'm on holiday.  Unfortunately, while it's the school holidays and we've got Renae's mum, step-dad and brother staying with us, I'm not on holiday, so the challenges continue unabated! This challenge is courtesy of... Matt Boyce. The challenge Skinny dip.  No specifics, so I'm taking this to be swimming naked somewhere public.  No other restrictions. Challenge accepted. This is probably not how you expect a skinny dipping challenge to start, but yesterday I was at a kid's birthday party... Listen, don't dial that third '9', just put the phone down and hear me out. OK, our nephew Charlie turned 6 yesterday.  As his party, he chose "cake in the woods".  It was pretty much what you might expect.  Cake.  In the woods.  The woods being Roslin Glen Country Park.  There was cake.  There were party games.  There was lots of splashing about in the river. The d
Read more

Challenge 2: Learn To Draw

Image
My pre-course drawings.  The bottom one is a bagel, in case you can't tell. So, what's this challenge all about? When I was at school (many, many years ago now), there were three things that never came naturally to me and to which I did not apply myself.  They were art, music and foreign languages.  (PE never really came naturally either, beyond a certain degree of competence at catching balls, but I enjoyed it enough to at least try.)  Of those three subjects, I've always quietly regretted not putting the effort into French.  I took it to Standard Grade, but no further.  I dropped it because it was hard and I wasn't great at it.  But this entry isn't about French, it's about art.  Did I regret dropping that even before Standard Grade level? Well, no.  Because I knew I was bad at art.  I knew I couldn't draw.  How did I know?  Seven years of primary school art classes on a Wednesday afternoon is how.  Seven years of boredom and disappointment as my
Read more

Challenge 1: Learn French

So, what's this challenge all about? I mentioned last entry that there were three things I wasn't good at in school: art, music and foreign languages. We've covered art in the learn to draw challenge, now it's time for SPEAKING LOUDLY AND SLOWLY TO JOHNNY FOREIGNER. Unlike art, I did do French up to Standard Grade, but, if I'm being honest, that was only because I had to take it that far. French never grabbed me. Whether it was something about the method of teaching, the late start (I was in S1 before I ever darkened the door of a second language) or just teen-aged laziness, French never spoke to me. In return, I only ever grunted monosyllabicly back in an accent best described as "not French". Come the end of S4, I dropped it and never looked back.  Until a year and a half later.  Instead of doing sixth year at my school, I did a year in high school in the states via a cultural exchange programme where I went there and no one came here. (I
Read more