Strawberry and black pepper meringues

It was a good long weekend this one. I've baked some amazeballs eclairs for one of my friend's birthdays and celebrated her with rose wine as well! What's not to like?

It was a sunny Sunday as well, which meant going to the park and also ordering our Christmas tree. I can honestly say this is one of the best trees I've ever had! Can't wait for Sunday to dress it all up with our friends.

I say it was sunny, but boy was it cold, so we rushed home from the park to bake these beauties. They are beauties: meringues flavoured with strawberries and black pepper. 

Ingredients (made around 60 one bite kisses):

175gr egg whites

350gr sugar

2 tbsp freeze dried strawberry

1/4tsp freshly ground pepper

Method:

Pre-heat your oven to 200C. 

Place sugar in an oven proof dish that you have previously lined with parchment paper and put the sugar in the oven for around 10 minutes. This is a tip I got from the Meringue Girls book, as well as the flavour idea :). Heating up the sugar apparently makes the mixture more stable ;). It does work!

While the sugar is in the oven start mixing your egg whites at a medium speed until you get soft peaks.

Remove the sugar from the oven and reduce the oven temperature to 100C.

Start adding your hot sugar one tablespoon at the time and increase the speed of your mixer to medium high. Unfortunatelt it will be quite difficult to do this without a mixer, but hey if you feel adventurous go for it! It is definitely a good workout!

When the mixture is glossy and starts to form hard peaks add your dried flavouring ingredients: the freeze dried strawberry powder and the pepper.

Continue beating until all the sugar is added and then beat some more, for about 5-8 minutes on a high speed until you all the sugar is dissolved (you shouldn't feel a lot of sugar if you rub a bit of the mixture between your fingers).

While the mixer is doing its job, line two baking trays with parchment paper and prepare your piping bag.

Transfer the mixture to your piping bag and pipe the meringues on the tray. Play with it, I honestly still can't pipe them all completely uniform, but hey that's the charm of home made meringues isn't it?

Bake the meringues at 100C for about 3 hours and then turn the oven off and leave them inside even over night to dry them up further. I have removed mine as I still like a bit of a gooey centre.

That's it! Now you are ready to stuff your face and trust me you soooooo will!

xoxo bread addicts!

Obsessing over baguettes

I really don't have much time today, guys! It's crazy crazy town here. You won't believe it, but it's been so crazy that I didn't even have time to bake some proper bread lately.

I have baked some raisin cookies though and will surely tell you all about them soon, as they are scrumptiously good and remind me so much of my childhood and grandpa and great grandma.

Today it's just a photo day, photos of my first try at baking Tartine style baguettes. 

As you can see the scoring is not there yet and the crumb needs to open up more, but I am working on it!

I will share the recipe for these beauties with you soon! I promise!

xoxo bread addicts!

Friday morning finds: ceramics, cards and a lovely watch

It's a gloomy, grey day in London today, so I though I'll share some finds that I am completely in love with.

    1. Oh My Home       2. The Horse Watch     3. RowensCo

I am off, have lots to plan for an incoming project. Will fill you in soon! Wish me luck!

xoxo bread addicts!

Happy Monday meringues

Today it's a big day for me. Today Romania's new President was announced and I am really pleased that it is the guy I voted for. I am not going to go into the politics discussion, I am just happy that after all the trouble lots of people have gone through, waiting for hours in front of embassies and consulates all over the world, we managed to make a difference.

Here is to all of us Romanians! Let's hope he will be all the things we expect him to be. To celebrate this joyful day, I thought I'll make some meringues and share the beautiful pictures with you! Smile it's sugary Monday!

I promise I will give you guys the recipe soon, but today I just wanted to make it about celebratory colours!

xoxo bread addicts!

Eclairs, éclairs, éclairs

I haven't got much time today, but just wanted to share with you my latest éclair adventure.

I've baked these for a BBQ this weekend and they were a massive success! So pleased!

Here they are:

1. Valrhona chocolate and coffee ganache with a coffee and chocolate glaze

2. Passionfruit caramel with cinnamon mascarpone cream and pieces of apple.

Aren't they lovely? Will give it a go at sharing the glaze and ganache recipes with you soon, I promise!

xoxo bread addicts!

Old school steam fun fair

It's a regular grey autumn day in London today, even though it has started with a lovely coloured sky covered in traitorous moving clouds, so I thought I'll share some happy images with you guys, from a day out we have spent earlier this summer at an old school steam fun fair. Yes, it was summer, just ignore the grey clouds. It was summer and all the rides were shiny, the cotton candy was pink and extra sweet and we loved it.

I don't know about you, but I simply love that all school mechanical music that follows you from ride to ride, even though it doesn't really remind me of my childhood. I suppose it's not the fact that I have spent my childhood in a communist country that didn't think much about entertaining the young generation, but the fact that I am too young to have been to a steam fun fair anyway.

I was a bit disappointed when Fi point blank refused to go on the carousel and I soooo wanted a ride on the horses... Next time I'll just brave all the looks and just do the ride alone ;).

I am out now guys, tomorrow we have a big bbq with friends and then fireworks, so really need to prepare!

xoxo bread addicts!

A new passion/obsession is taking shape: éclairs!

I've already mentioned my love and obsession for bread baking, right? Yes, sure I have! What I haven't said, yet, is that it is not my only love.

A few months back I went to visit a friend of mine in Paris! It was all about food and rose wine and pastry. I've been to Paris many times, but it was this time that I have re-discovered éclairs! The proper ones, the modern ones, not the cream filled, chocolate topped ones that, frankly, bore me to death. I've discovered Christophe Adam's Eclair de Genie and now I am absolutely hooked!

Needless to say, I am not hooked on simply eating them, I went on a quest to learn how to bake them. And I am really not one to be happy with half measures! Oh, NO!

My éclairs need to be perfectly shaped, with a crunchy crust, puffed up and hollow on the inside, so that I can fill them with lots and lots of tasty stuff. Yes, stuff! I am not yet at the filling stage, will get there and I'll let you know.

For now this is the story of my éclair shells and choux pastry.

I need to tell you from the beginning that it took around 7 tries to get to the results you can see in the images and I haven't baked them again after that (this was a week ago), so not really sure I will manage to get the same results again. Fingers crossed though! I will weep for weeks if not and trust me that is not a good sight.

Let's talk choux pastry now:

Ingredients:

80gr milk

80gr water

2gr salt

4gr sugar

80gr unsalted butter

80gr sifted French type 55 flour

140gr eggs

10gr eggs for the egg wash

Method:

I thought choux pastry is easy, peasy! Well I was wrong! It is not, but it's not impossible either!

Here is how I've done it:

1. Heat the milk, water, salt, sugar and butter in a pan until the butter is melted, then turn the heat up and let the mixture come to the boil.

2. Remove the mixture from the heat and add the flour all in one go! Mix until you get an even mixture.

3. Return the dough to the heat and cook until it is quite dry! This is really important for the end result! I have read lots of recipes, methods, watched lots of videos and everyone says: dry your dough, otherwise your éclairs will not puff up as expected. I try cooking the dough until a film develops on the bottom of my pan.

4. Remove the dough from heat and leave it to cool for about 5 minutes. In the mean time beat and measure your eggs.

5. Beat in the eggs in three turns, making sure each turn you incorporate all the egg. After all the egg mixture has been added, beat for another 3 minutes, until the pastry is shiny and smooth.

Pre-heat your oven to 200C for about 20 minutes so that it is evenly heated.

Line a baking tray/sheet with parchment paper and  pipe your eclairs on it. Just to make it clear I am no piping master... I use a star shaped nozzle around 1.5cm in diametre and a piping bag. The only thing I have noticed and think works is not to force the pastry out of the bag onto the paper, but kind of let it flow it out by gently squeezing the bag, if that makes any sense! 

I pipe eclairs a bit shorter than norm probably around 9 cm in length.
Egg wash your éclairs, trying not to drop too much egg in the tray as this might result in the egg actually cooking and preventing your shells to rise, by sticking them to the tray.

Now for the bake: transfer the éclairs to the oven and turn down the heat to 190C. I can only bake one tray at the time - as I have noticed that my oven simply can't bake both sets the same.

Bake for 6-8 minutes at 190C (6 does it for me, otherwise they crack), then turn the heat down to 160C and bake for another 40 minutes. This will ensure your éclairs will have a great colour and shine and they will be dry and hollow.

You are ready for the filling! Unfortunately I haven't got a recipe for a great filling and glaze just yet, but working on it and promise I will be back to tell you all about it.

The ones in the images were filled with cream and a dash of lemon curd and glazed with dark chocolate sprinkled with lime zest shavings.

Make sure to serve and eat your éclairs the same day you have prepared them, that way you will get the full WOW!

I must admit I scoff them anyway, even the next day after spending the night in the fridge, when the crunch is gone and the glaze has lost its shine. But that's just me!

xoxo bread addicts!

Tartine's whole wheat loaf

I've been very scared of baking breads with a high content of whole wheat flour, for a very long time now. It might be that all I could think of when thinking whole wheat were those horrible brown loaves my grandmother used to buy from the corner shop. They had an awful look, you could break the counter with them if you banged one against it hard enough and the taste wasn't great either. Yes, the might have been healthy, but that was about it.

However, I had to try at least once and let me tell you I've baked this whole wheat bread, using a Tartine recipe, a couple of times now and I think it's amazing!

Tartine whole wheat loaf (makes 1 loaf)
I've used my 100% whole wheat starter to make this bread, as opposed to Chad's young starter. Yes still too lazy to try the proper version of Chad's recipes!!

Day of the levain - I usually start in the morning the day before the bake.
Start by building your levain using the ingredients in the next table.

Ingredients for levain

Levain ingredients	Quantity (grams)	Baker’s percentage
White flour	25 grams	50%
Whole wheat flour	25 grams	50%
Water 25.5°C (78F)	50 grams	100%
Whole wheat starter (100% hydration)	1 tablespoon	na

To create the levain dissolve the starter in the water, then add the flours. Leave the levain to mature in a covered bowl for 8-10 hours. Tip: I always cover my bowl with a shower cap, I find it works just fine.

Same evening - build the bread dough

Ingredients for the bread

Bread ingredients	Quantity (grams)	Baker’s percentage
White flour	150 grams	30%
Whole wheat flour	350 grams	70%
Water 25.5°C (78F)	400 grams	80%
Levain	125 grams aprox	25%
Salt	10 grams	2%

Overall bread formula - the water and flour in the starter are not accounted for the baker's percentage

Bread ingredients	Quantity (grams)	Baker’s percentage
White flour	175 grams	31.81%
Whole wheat flour	375 grams	68.18%
Water 25.5°C (78F)	450 grams	81.81%
Starter	1 tablespoon	na
Salt	10 grams	1.82%

The autolysis - 30 minutes

Once the 8-10hrs are up and your levain floats in water (just transfer a bit of it in a bowl of water - if it floats it's ready, if not give it a bit more time), you are ready to mix the bread. Dissolve the levain in the water, add the flours and mix until all the flour is hydrated. It will be a shaggy mess but that's ok. DO NOT add the salt at this stage. Cover your bowl and leave the mix to rest for 30 minutes. This stage will help build the gluten, which will end up helping us achieve a nice crumb structure.

The mix - around 10 minutes

Once the autolysis is done, you can add the salt. Because I only bake one bread at a time, I just sprinkle the salt as is on the top, before mixing, but if you prefer you could reserve some water from the dough mixing stage, to just dissolve the salt in. In any case, add the salt and start pinching the dough so that you get all that salt incorporated. I use table salt, as sea salt tends to have bigger crystals that are not so easily absorbed.

After the salt is incorporated, just give your dough about 10-12 stretch and folds until it becomes more pliable about 2-3 minutes. If you are not familiar with the stretch and fold method, have a look at this clip, I find it's very good. 

Transfer your dough to a clean bowl, cover it and leave it to rest.

The bulk fermentation stage - around 150 minutes (2 hours and a half)

Leave your dough to rest for 30 minutes after the mix. When the 30 minutes are up give it a series of stretch and fold and leave it covered for another 30 minutes. Just so you know, I usually perform the stretch and fold directly in the bowl, without removing the dough. Perform 3 series of stretch and folds and then leave the dough to proof for the last hour.

The pre-shaping and rest stage - around 25 minutes

After the bulk fermentation is over, you are now ready to pre-shape. I always tend to pre-shape my dough as a boule (round), in this case not a tight one and then leave it to rest, smooth side up, covered with a clean towl. Leave it to rest for 20 minutes.

The shaping stage - around 5 minutes

Flour your banneton, or basket. I have started, recently, to use rice flour instead of wheat, just because my bread used to get stuck to the banneton during the long retarding in the fridge. It works quite well now :). Uncover and shape your bread. I usually shape the Pain au Levain as a batard (oblong shape). Place the loaf seam side up in your proofing basket, cover it, or slide the basket in a plastic bag and close it tighlty.

If you need help with shaping, I have found this clip to be amazing!

I usually dust the banneton with rice flour for this bread as the hydration is quite high and for the first couple of times my bread got stuck on the basket :(. Since I took the advice of fellow bakers about using rice flour, I had less sticking incidents!

The overnight proof (retarding in the fridge) stage - 10 hours

Slide yous basket in the fridge and leave it there for the next 10 hours. This should allow your bread to rise very slowly building up the flavour. In my case also helps time wise, as it allows me to start the whole process the morning of day 1, before going to work on a Friday and baking the bread on a Saturday morning.

I usually bake this bread straight from the fridge as I find it doesn't really need more proofing after the overnight stay in the fridge.

Heat your oven - 90 minutes

It takes around 90 minutes for my oven to heat up, together with my baking stone and a tray that I use to create the steam at the baking stage. I heat it up to 250C, which is the maximum for my domestic oven :).

The baking - 50 minutes

Dust your peel (in my case an old plastic chopping board) with semolina, transfer the loaf to the peel and score it. I am by no means an expect on scoring, but here is the loaf we are talking about and the lousy job I did on scoring, it still came out with a nice ear ;).

Transfer the scored loaf to the heated stone and immediately add hot water to the pre-heated tray in the oven. Shut the door and bake the bread at 250C for the first 10 minutes, then reduce the oven temperature to 230C.

20 minutes into the baking remove the tray from the oven to complete the baking without the steam.

Leave to bake for another 25 minutes, so a total of 45 minutes.

When the 45 minutes are up, turn the oven off and leave the loaf inside for another 5 minutes with the oven door ajar.

This is such an amazing bread, even Fi loves eating it, straight from the oven smothered in butter and she is really partial to food = basically hates it!

xoxo bread addicts!

In my kitchen: Tetu cast iron kettle and ABCT casserole

There are so many things I wish I had in my kitchen, you just can't imagine!  Seriously, you can't! I want copper pans, decorated rolling pins, all sorts of moulds and ceramic mugs, you get the gist! Too many things for my crammed London kitchen.

But, it will come a day when I'll have a kitchen of my own and then I will definitely have to have these things as well:

 

The Tetu Japanase cast iron kettle. It is designed to make tea for generations to come, not to mention it is a marvellous piece of design!

Here it is the second item on my list today: the eco-friendly, non-stick ABCT Casserole! Love the great ceramic work, the mahogany lids and clip!

I am off now to dream about my prefect kitchen!

xoxo bread addicts!

Norfolk post cards

This year we have spent our Easter break with friends in Norfolk. We've never been, but we will surely go back, because its a charming place!
Loved the large beaches, the walks in the forrest and the crab!

I am off now as this is my Birthday weekend and need to get ready for the celebrations! ;)

xoxo bread addicts!

I've baked a version of Tartine basic country bread

I don't think there is any bread head out there that hasn't heard of Tartine Bakery or his co-founder Chad Robertson.

If you love bread and you have no idea what I am talking about, leave, now! And never come back!  Seriously? Just search for it, go, go, go! Read all about it! Worship the work, the craftsmanship, worship the surf haired baker. I do! ;)

Back to bread, I have baked Chad's tartine basic country bread for a few times now, but I have to be honest: I've never done it properly. Yes, I know! I should be ashamed of myself! Really ashamed! And I am really, but for some reason I never got to build his young levain. Truth is I was lazy! I've just used some of his method with my old trusted starter.

Tartine style country bread (makes 1 loaf)

Similarly to my version of the Pain au Levain, I have used my 100% whole wheat starter to make this bread, as opposed to Chad's young starter. I will definitely have to try the proper method as well!

Day of the levain - I usually start in the morning the day before the bake.
Start by building your levain using the ingredients in the next table.

Ingredients for levain

Levain ingredients	Quantity (grams)	Baker’s percentage
White flour	25 grams	50%
Whole wheat flour	25 grams	50%
Water 25.5°C (78F)	50 grams	100%
Whole wheat starter (100% hydration)	1 tablespoon	na

To create the levain dissolve the starter in the water, then add the flours. Leave the levain to mature in a covered bowl for 8-10 hours. Tip: I always cover my bowl with a shower cap, I find it works just fine.

Same evening - build the bread dough

Ingredients for the bread

Bread ingredients	Quantity (grams)	Baker’s percentage
White flour	450 grams	90%
Whole wheat flour	50 grams	10%
Water 25.5°C (78F)	375 grams	75%
Levain	125 grams aprox	25%
Salt	10 grams	2%

Overall bread formula - the water and flour in the starter are not accounted for the baker's percentage

Bread ingredients	Quantity (grams)	Baker’s percentage
White flour	475 grams	86.36%
Whole wheat flour	75 grams	13.64%
Water 25.5°C (78F)	425 grams	77.27%
Starter	1 tablespoon	na
Salt	10 grams	1.82%

The autolysis - 30 minutes

Once the 8-10hrs are up and your levain floats in water (just transfer a bit of it in a bowl of water - if it floats it's ready, if not give it a bit more time), you are ready to mix the bread. Dissolve the levain in the water, add the flours and mix until all the flour is hydrated. It will be a shaggy mess but that's ok. DO NOT add the salt at this stage. Cover your bowl and leave the mix to rest for 30 minutes. This stage will help build the gluten, which will end up helping us achieve a nice crumb structure.

The mix - around 10 minutes

Once the autolysis is done, you can add the salt. Because I only bake one bread at a time, I just sprinkle the salt as is on the top, before mixing, but if you prefer you could reserve some water from the dough mixing stage, to just dissolve the salt in. In any case, add the salt and start pinching the dough so that you get all that salt incorporated. I use table salt, as sea salt tends to have bigger crystals that are not so easily absorbed.

After the salt is incorporated, just give your dough about 10-12 stretch and folds until it becomes more pliable about 2-3 minutes. If you are not familiar with the stretch and fold method, have a look at this clip, I find it's very good.

Transfer your dough to a clean bowl, cover it and leave it to rest.

The bulk fermentation stage - around 150 minutes (2 hours and a half)

Leave your dough to rest for 30 minutes after the mix. When the 30 minutes are up give it a series of stretch and fold and leave it covered for another 30 minutes. Just so you know, I usually perform the stretch and fold directly in the bowl, without removing the dough. Perform 3 series of stretch and folds and then leave the dough to proof for the last hour.

The pre-shaping and rest stage - around 25 minutes

After the bulk fermentation is over, you are now ready to pre-shape. I always tend to pre-shape my dough as a boule (round), in this case not a tight one and then leave it to rest, smooth side up, covered with a clean towl. Leave it to rest for 20 minutes.

The shaping stage - around 5 minutes

Flour your banneton, or basket. I have started, recently, to use rice flour instead of wheat, just because my bread used to get stuck to the banneton during the long retarding in the fridge. It works quite well now :). Uncover and shape your bread. I usually shape the Pain au Levain as a batard (oblong shape). Place the loaf seam side up in your proofing basket, cover it, or slide the basket in a plastic bag and close it tighlty.

If you need help with shaping, I have found this clip to be amazing!

I usually dust the banneton with rice flour for this bread as the hydration is quite high and for the first couple of times my bread got stuck on the basket :(. Since I took the advice of fellow bakers about using rice flour, I had less sticking incidents!

The overnight proof (retarding in the fridge) stage - 10 hours

Slide yous basket in the fridge and leave it there for the next 10 hours. This should allow your bread to rise very slowly building up the flavour. In my case also helps time wise, as it allows me to start the whole process the morning of day 1, before going to work on a Friday and baking the bread on a Saturday morning.

I usually bake this bread straight from the fridge as I find it doesn't really need more proofing after the overnight stay in the fridge.

Heat your oven - 90 minutes

It takes around 90 minutes for my oven to heat up, together with my baking stone and a tray that I use to create the steam at the baking stage. I heat it up to 250C, which is the maximum for my domestic oven :).

The baking - 50 minutes

 Dust your peel (in my case an old plastic chopping board) with semolina, transfer the loaf to the peel and score it. I am by no means an expect on scoring, but here is the loaf we are talking about and the lousy job I did on scoring, it still came out with a nice ear ;).

Transfer the scored loaf to the heated stone and immediately add hot water to the pre-heated tray in the oven. Shut the door and bake the bread at 250C for the first 10 minutes, then reduce the oven temperature to 230C.

20 minutes into the baking remove the tray from the oven to complete the baking without the steam.

Leave to bake for another 25 minutes, so a total of 45 minutes.

When the 45 minutes are up, turn the oven off and leave the loaf inside for another 5 minutes with the oven door ajar.

You have now baked a Tartine style bread! I love the dark crust I always get on this loaf and the amazing custard like crumb!

Both sets of images are of a Tartine country loaf, baked at different times. As you can see I am not there yet in terms of consistency. This might also be because the white flour I've used for each of them was different. I will start documenting the types of flour used as well, but forgot to do it for these two.

xoxo bread addicts!