A Brilliant Day of Baking

This week Mark and I went into London to the Bread Ahead Cookery School in Borough
Market  as I had won two places on the Complete Sourdough Workshop class which is held there.

Having stayed overnight in London the night before (and enjoyed a delicious Lebanese meal at one of Maroush's many restaurants on the Edgware Road) we reached the market area early and had a few minutes to wander round and whet our appetites by browsing around all the wonderful food stalls, then headed into the school to meet our instructor, Manuel and his assistant Fran, and our fellow students, who ranged from experienced bakers to absolute novices.

The day was well planned and thoroughly prepared for, so we accomplished lots and learned lots. The morning was spent learning about sourdough starters and starting to make our own, which we brought home to continue nurturing until it is ready to cook with, and then using some of the bakery's own starter to get our various bakes for the day started. We were taught lots about the background of the breads we made and the techniques we were  using and with the hands-on experience and expert tuition we learned far more than we could ever have done from books, television or You Tube.

Our first completed make was also our lunch - a pizza made with a sourdough base.

Probably the best pizza I've ever eaten - and the easiest I've ever made. We were even taught the shaping technique of slapping the dough from arm to arm.

The same basic dough was used for our next completed bake, a baguette.

This has the true baguette texture with a delicious crispy crust and lovely well risen crumb with large holes and a satisfying, slightly chewy texture. So much more like the baguettes we buy when we visit France than anything sold in local supermarkets!

Next we produced a very dark rye bread called Borodinsky, which contains caraway and coriander seeds and has an unusual cracked-flour effect crust.

As usual for a dark rye bread, this has a much denser texture and I can tell you, as I tried it today, is delicious with black cherry conserve for breakfast.

Next we made a Levain bread and were shown how to use a banneton to shape it and a razor blade to score the top - Mark and I made different designs.

And our final bake to be completed - although due to the number of steps in the making, it had been the first we started, was a No-Knead Fennel and Raisin bread, which again we shaped in a banneton and scored with a razor blade before cooking in its own steam in a dutch oven.

I think this is my favourite bread from the whole day. Apart from looking spectacular, the texture and flavour are wonderful. Fennel seeds and raisins aren't a combination I've ever thought of using but they are delicious together. We've just eaten some of this with cheese for lunch.

So we staggered back to the station under the weight of four delicious loaves each  - we've had to put some of it in the freezer as there is far too much for the two of us to eat before it goes stale - plus our recipe packs, our own sourdough starters, bags of rye flour and highly useful scraping tools.

As you can imagine, the smell of freshly baked bread filled the whole carriage on the train. We keep looking at our breads and thinking "Did we really make those?" - so much flavour and so much variety packed into six fascinating hours.

 If you would like to read about Mark's take on the day, and see his photos, you can read his own blog post here.

L is For..... at Cardz 4 Guyz

Our new challenge is ready at Cardz 4 Guyz and this time we would like to see something beginning with the letter L on your card.

The paper and image I have used were printed out from a CD that was free with Making Cards magazine a while back - in fact Making Cards has really come up trumps for this as the sentiment is stamped with a stamp that came from there too.

I've kept it bold and bright, as befits a card for a boy, with the addition of nothing more than black spotty washi tape and black candi.

Hiding in the jungle

I'm sorry to be deluging you with posts today - I've had a busy few days of crafting and now I have a hectic week ahead and may not get chance to post at all. So I'm having a bit of a blitz today.

This is one of those cards that is just so much easier to make when you have a stamping platform!

First of all I put the CLOSED card in the Misti, using the Creative Corners to position the card, placed the animals ( a set that was a magazine freebie) where I wanted them to be peeping out, drew lightly around their heads to show where I wanted the apertures and closed the platform to pick the stamps up on the clear plate. Then I removed the card, leaving the corners in place to make sure I replaced it in exactly the same spot.

Next I stamped jungle leaves, from a couple of Uniko sets, all over the front of the card. Then I taped circle dies over the pencil markings, so that each head would appear to be peeping through a circle, and cut the apertures.

Now I returned the card to the Misti, positioning it inside the corners, but this time I opened out the card and turned the front panel to the back, so I was stamping on the inside. Then I inked the pre-positioned stamps and stamped the images. I coloured them in with watercolour markers rather than alcohol ones, so the ink wouldn't show on the back of the card, although I could have used the alcohol ones and covered the back panel with a spare piece of card - but I've only just thought of that. Although you can't see them on the photo, I stamped a few more bits inside - some grass for the giraffe  and tiger to stand on and a vine for the monkey to swing on,

Finally I turned the front panel back to the front and re-creased the fold.

Now, please don't point out to me that tigers and giraffes don't live on the same continent - I know that, and had intended using the lion and not the tiger, but he was facing the wrong way and looked all wrong!

I am sharing this with

Make My Monday - Going around in circles

Inkspirational - Aperture card

  

Yet more hearts

It's Valentine's week so I suppose I'd better make a few romantic  looking cards!

First of all, here are the cards I've made for the latest Twofer challenge.

The stamp I've used is an unmounted one that came in a RAK many years ago.  It says "Third Coast" on the back so I presume that's the manufacturer. For the first card, I used Versamark ink and clear embossing powder to stamp it randomly over the pink card and heat emboss it, then added a sentiment stamped on vellum and held in place with glue dots behind the heart shaped pearls.

For the second I heat embossed in black on red then attached it to a panel of Bazzill embossed card. The finishing touches are some ribbon from an NBUS reel (odd how the stuff with hearts on tends not to get used in this house!) and a peel-off sentiment from La Pashe. 

Now a closer look at the cards on their own

I'm sharing this one with

Sweet Stampin - Girly 

And I'm sharing this with

Allsorts - Love is in the air

AAA - All you need is Love

  

RECIPE - Quick Pickled Onions

When I was a little girl, my grandma always had a bowl of these delicious pickled onions on the table, at every mealtime. Mum occasionally made  them too, but usually only if we were having chips or a salad. We all loved them so much we used to sneak into the kitchen and steal them from the bowl - every few minutes the metal plate she covered the bowl with could be heard rattling and by the time the meal was ready, there were hardly any left!

They were very popular in fish and chip shops and cafés around the Warrington area where I lived as a child, most places had a large bowl of them on the counter for customers to help themselves from, and although I never went in pubs then, they probably had them there too. Only a few years ago I went in a pub that still had them, although they were probably flouting all kinds of laws made up by the Department of Over-Protecting Us From Ourselves.
After all, they were in a large, uncovered bowl and customers could dip mucky utensils and even fingers in - but I'm sure the vinegar would do a lot to help prevent the spread of germs!

Anyway, since you probably won't find 'em in't pub or't chippy any more, here's how to make them.

For 1 large onion you will need 250ml of vinegar, 1 teaspoon of salt and 1 heaped tablespoon of sugar (I use a third of the quantity of Truvia). Whisk the salt and sugar into the vinegar until dissolved. Peel and halve the onion and slice very thinly, and place in a non metallic dish with a lid. Pour over the vinegar mixture and leave to stand for 3-4 hours, stirring occasionally.

This keeps well for several days at room temperature - given chance! When the onion is all used up you can slice another into the vinegar - I usually do this 2-3 times, after which the vinegar takes on a cloudy appearance which is unappetising.

Traditionally these are made with malt vinegar but I've made them with all kinds of vinegar, whatever seems to best match what we are eating. I'd stick to malt vinegar if they are going to be eaten with fish and chips though! My current batch, in the photo, was made with red wine vinegar - HOME MADE red wine vinegar, made using the vinegar maker my daughter gave me for my birthday last year.

She said I'd be able to make vinegar using left over wine - honestly, she's known me for thirty odd years, she's my daughter after all, and yet she somehow thinks I might ever have left over wine! So I have to buy wine for it - I treat it to a bottle now and then when there's a good special offer. The vinegar may not be cheap - but oh my word it's wonderful!

What a week!

It's been One Of Those weeks.

First the dishwasher packed up - luckily we managed to get that sorted out - with all the cooking we do, managing without it would be a real struggle.

Then the loo in our en suite got stuck on permanent flush. Fortunately we have a maintenance contract and it was sorted out the next day.

Then the gas boiler started to play up, switching itself off every few minutes and refusing to fire up when the heating first comes on in the morning. Because it's such a busy time of year, the engineer can't come out to it for a few more days so at the moment we have only intermittent heating and hot water.

Anyway by Friday morning all the repairs were either done or booked, so we got on and booked airport parking for our holiday in April, and a hotel for the previous week when we are going to look after my Mum while my brother, her main carer, goes on holiday. We were feeling pretty pleased with ourselves - until the post arrived, bringing with it a summons for me to do two weeks of jury service - for the period of my brother's and our holidays. Now jury service is a great privilege but in order to do it at the time not only would we have to cancel the holiday we have booked and paid for, but so would my brother and his family, and also my daughter and her family as we are holidaying with them. So I've applied to have it deferred to a later date - please all cross your fingers (or hold your thumbs, if that's what you do in your country) that the deferment is granted!

Anyway, I've made a card that sums up my feelings about this week:

The image is a Viva las Vegas stamp, the sentiment from So Suzy and the splodges are from the Gentleman Crafter set.

I am sharing this with

Rubber Dance - I've chosen the colour challenge of Orange, Turquoise and Lime Green

Chinese New Year card

When we lived in Hong Kong, our home was out in the (then) very rural New Territories,  and wherever we went our journeys would take us through miles of farmland. At this time of year, the fields were full of plum and cherry blossom because everyone wanted to have some in their homes for the New Year celebrations. Strings of bright lights over the fields helped to bring the blossom on at exactly the right speed so that it was all perfect just in time for the big shopping frenzy.

This week's photo inspiration at Just Add Ink  reminded me of driving through those fields, so I just HAD to make a Chinese New Year card.

The stamps are all from a set that was a covermount a few years ago - I think the magazine was Creative Stamping or its now-defunct sister publication, Get Stamping.

And here is the lovely photo from Just Add Ink that brought back such lovely memories for me