The commonly known Japanese stock, dashi  uses kombu (seaweed) and bonito flakes (fish), to make either the delicate very clear stock ichiban dashi, or the stronger fuller body flavoured niban dashi.  It’s seriously worth making dashi from scratch, so simple and the flavour is beautifully clean, you can not compare it to instant dashi sachets for sale.

This version using shiitake mushrooms and kombu is less well known but a great one to have for vegetarian and vegan dishes, or as in my case for allergy sufferers.  In the Japanese Buddhist cuisine vegetarian dashi can be made from a variety of dried vegetables but this combination is apparently a popular one.  Shiitake and kombu are excellent together because both ingredients are super rich in compounds that make up the umami flavour.

Dried Shiitake Mushrooms

I can’t buy whole dried shiitake mushrooms needed for this stock in the supermarkets, I’ve only seen sliced dried shiitake, for whole ones I have to visit a Japanese or Chinese grocery shops or buy online.  Once I unfortunately used the sliced shiitake and created the most horrid bitter stinky over-powering stock that went straight down the sink.  Too strong.

If sliced shiitake is the only type you can get hold of, then my advice would be to play around with tiny amounts, start out by using 10-15 grams (half an ounce) and see if it will provide the mild mushroom flavour the stock should have.

While in the middle of writing this post realised I have someone on twitter selling organic shiitake mushrooms, fresh and dried Maesyffin Mushrooms here.

Don’t Use Fresh Shiitake

Fresh shiitake mushroom do not have the depth of flavour as the dried ones.  It’s in the drying process of the mushroom which makes dried shiitake an excellent source of umami.  In the dehydration of the mushroom the substance riboucleotides is broken down and the enzymes release guanylate.  Guanylate is a major component in the flavour of umami.

Water Temperature

When soaking shiitake mushrooms it matters the temperature they’re soak at.  If the water is too hot it will stop any further enzyme activity continuing the process of producing guanylate from the ribonucleotides.

The drying process doesn’t provide fully the whole transformation into guanylate, therefore on hydrating the mushrooms the enzymes can continue that process in warm water.  If the water is too hot the enzymes will be killed, thus stopping the maximum release of the guanylic acid.

The optimum temperature for hydrating the mushrooms is at 30-40˚C / 86-104 F.

Variety of Dried Shiitake

Depending how much the cup of the shiitake mushroom has been allowed to open while growing it will define the category it falls into; hanadonko, donko, kouko and koushin.

Hanadonko is considered the highest quality because of the lower temperatures used for growing and drying, the cap is quite closed and thick, long soaking time.

Donko dried shiitake has the cap half open, also relative thick caps.

Kouko the cap is more open than the previous two.

Koushin are dried shiitake mushroom who’s caps have been allowed to open the furthest, it’s the thinnest of all the varieties, needs less soaking time and good in stir-fries.

Mushroom Stock

The mushroom stock can be made couple of ways, soaking the mushrooms in room temperature water all day / overnight, or if speeding up the process bring the water to 30-40˚C.

• 60-100g whole dried mushrooms
• 2 litres of water approx (30-40˚C it’s just warm to the touch)

Strain the mushroom stock, there will be some tiny gritty bits in the bottom.

Shiitake Dashi

Kombu Seewead for Dashi

It’s hard to come by kombu, and needless to say not all kombu is the same quality, but here in the UK beggars can’t be choosers and the two different brand names below were the only two available in the Japanese shop in Soho.  You can also buy it in the Japanese Centre shop or online from them.

Water Temperature for Kombu Stock

Below is the water with tiny bubbles showing the right temperature the water should come to with the kombu inside it.

If the water gets beyond this, and that is beyond the temperature of 60-65˚C, other substances will be released into the water like iodine, aldehydes and sulphates which give off unpleasant smells and over-power a natural sweetness in the kombu.

Kombu Stock

Some recipes for dashi stock (ones containing bonito flakes) let the kombu soak in cold water first then bring the water to below boiling point turn off the heat and remove the seaweed.  In this vegetarian recipe here the kombu is meant to stay at this very low temperature for an hour.

• 30-40 grams kombu
• 2 litres of water

Add the kombu to the water bring it to 60˚C and keep it there for an hour, the hard part is keeping the temperature right.

The water will form a thin skin and little bubbles showing.  If it’s too hot will start to produce white scum.  It should never boil.

Remove the kombu and strain the stock.

Shiitake Dashi & Kombu Dashi

You can mix 1 part shiitake to 2 parts kombu stock, or use in equal amounts.

In the last post here, I said since the experiment with the poolish showed signs of activity it had inspired for more experiments, only this time not exhausting the yeast to see whether I could produce a good loaf.

A poolish is equal amounts of water to flour, how much yeast you add and the temperature it’s kept at will determine how fast it rises.  Usually you see a poolish sit anything from 6-12 hrs.

Bacterial Growth

The idea of a poolish (like with any other preferment) is to enhance bread flavour.  The long fermentation of the poolish contributes by allowing time for enzyme activity, and something else which is never spoken of is allowing bacterial growth.  Yeast doughs fermented for 8 hours or longer will have bacterial activity, this is what I believe contributes to a better flavour in long fermented yeast doughs.  In fact you can manipulate with certain flours or pre-long the length of time with the poolish to the extent it will add acidity to the finish crumb just as you do in a sourdough, only in a milder form.

The other contributing factor of a poolish is shortening the time it takes for the baker to make the bread.

Why Are All Poolish Recipes the Same?

What’s interesting when I started experimenting with this type of poolish was how I hadn’t seen it written elsewhere.  All my bread books when using a poolish they add more yeast on mixing the dough.  Did you notice in my last post how I had omitted adding any extra yeast when it came to making the dough?  This was the amazing discovery for me, that almost-dead-but-not-quite loaf was showing signs of activity.

I checked my bread books recipes using a poolish and all added yeast twice, a tiny amount for the poolish and again a larger amount mixing the poolish with the rest of the flour.  Why?  Why add yeast again?  Can a dough not be made with just the yeast in the poolish?  A tiny amount of yeast will still have thousands and thousands of yeast cells, isn’t that enough?  Made me wonder if they knew something I didn’t.  I wanted answers.

Above on the very top a sourdough levain, isn’t it interesting how it looks the same as a yeast version?

Underneath the levain, two different size poolish, one box has a larger amount (of equal amounts of flour/water ) to the other box.

If you remember in the last post I had mixed the poolish the night before 100g flour / 100g water, large pinch of yeast, and that’s how I made the dough on the right, the same as last time.

On the left I mixed a larger portion of flour/water for the poolish but same amount of yeast.

Mix the doughs, rested, folded once, short rest, shaped, short prove. bake.

Both have same amount of white roller mill flour to white stoneground.

Not surprising the dough on the left with the larger portion of poolish in the dough held together better and performed better.

Surprisingly, they both came out looking similar it was hard to tell them apart.

I score them the same to make sure there wouldn’t be differences in the oven-spring.

It was on seeing the crumb it was visible which loaf had the larger portion of poolish, the right, a more open aerated crumb.

Easier to see it close up below.

The crumb below from the smaller amount of poolish in the dough, showing signs of density, closed tight areas with no signs of air or carbon dioxide.  And it tasted as it looked, denser than the other.

The Crumb of A Good Poolish

What was interesting was how the texture of a yeast dough like this resembled the waxiness and chewiness of a sourdough.

Because of the amount of stoneground flour mixed in it also had great flour, making it the tastiest yeast loaf I’ve had (without being enhanced by nuts/olives/seeds or such like).

Poolish With All White Rollermill Flour

I was on a roll with this poolish experiment.

I could now successfully produce a poolish loaf without adding any extra yeast on mixing the dough.  I wanted to know how much flavour a poolish could produce using the dullest flour, 100% white roller mill.

I increase slightly more the amount for the poolish in this loaf.

The mixing, resting and folding I followed same as the loaves above.

Taste of Poolish With 100% Rollermill Flour?

Well, it was lacking the flavour the other loaves had.  What can I say about white roller mill flour other than it’s fantastic for performing all sorts of things with it but it lacks depth of flavour.

It tasted of a nice yeast loaf, difficult to satisfy a sourdough baker and therefore I’m always going to judge it with a hint of sourdough prejudice.

Where it excelled was the texture, it was good and chewy, to the point Allergy Kid noticed it and disliked it, if you don’t already know this this is the kid with a love for supermarket bread.

Old Fashion Poolish

Remember my questions above as to why did all recipes in my bread books for a poolish added yeast twice?

As you can see through my experience there is no need for the second addition of yeast.

I’m guessing the reason the second larger fix of yeast is added is to absolutely guaranty performance just in case the poolish has been left to over-ripe and is exhausted, as I’ve shown with these experiments it can happen.

Nothing in bread is new, we have been baking for thousands of years including yeast loaves, so surely this poolish method is old?

I turned to baker friend Paul Merry who’s a great fountain of knowledge with all sorts of traditional methods.  Paul indeed confirmed this is an old method of making dough.

A conversation about this with Anne from Felin Ganol mill led to her checking in the only book I hadn’t looked through properly, Elizabeth David’s English Bread and Yeast Cookery, page 107, Dough-mixing on the quarter-sponge system.  Elizabeth writes the recipe of a Walter Banfield’s formula using a tiny amount of yeast 0.13%, (baker’s percentage) and the recipe involves 3 stages, unlike the 2 stage method used here.  0.13% of yeast is a tiny amount, mine uses 0.2% of yeast.

Why I Love This Old Sponge Method

When discovering I could bake using only the yeast from the sponge I became as excited about making yeast loaves as when I first discovered sourdough.

I made poolish recipes last year when working in the cafe, using Jeffrey Hamelman’s formulas of adding the extra yeast, it was good for me as the baker to cut down on the process time but it contributed nothing to the taste of the bread, for this reason I never re-visited this method from a flavour perspective.

I can see from this method however adding a little stoneground or high extraction flour to the poolish would help the microorganism to acidify the dough a little, enhancing the flavour of the finished crumb.  And as I’ve said with the top loaves, mixing in white stoneground flour also made a good tasting loaf in a really quick time.

Adding the extra yeast when mixing the dough adds nothing to the flavour, the least yeast added the better chance of a good flavour you’ll be able to achieve.  If you don’t believe me, next time over-dose your dough with yeast and see how that yeasty-flavour tastes?

Long fermented yeast doughs with some type of preferment have developed plenty of enzyme activity, shortening the time on making the loaf as well contributing to flavour.  This time creates an environment for bacterial growth and they contribute towards some gluten breakdown and the raising of the acidity levels.  All of this will result in the characteristics of a good tasting loaf.

The other aspect lost with adding extra yeast is the loss of chewy texture crumb the poolish microflora worked so hard to create.

This turned out to be one of the most exciting experiments I’ve baked.  I’m a convert to this old fashion poolish with yeast dough.  It’s a fantastic way to make a quick and very good yeast loaf the next day with the minimum amount of effort, only adding a pinch of yeast to some flour and water before going to bed.  The dough the following day was ready for baking within two hours.

Yesterday I played around with the poolish further and produced a yeast loaf with some mild tang, will post about it.

Note:

After posting this on Facebook Universal page Jim Chevallier the author of  About the Baguette: Exploring the Origin of a French National Icon, a book I’m halfway through reading and would recommend it it’s full of interesting French bread facts, posted some old poolish recipes written from 1902 following the same principals I write about here.

And it transpires the original word for poolish is in fact spelt  pouliche.

I carried out this experiment with the full intention of predicting a failure with the poolish.  What I wasn’t prepared for was that the result wasn’t the complete failure I had anticipated, this led to further experiments with the poolish, very successful ones in fact.

It’s established a sourdough dough will give you plenty of time before it collapses.  I’ve mentioned before how I’ve left my sourdough doughs (white roller mill flour) for 10-12hrs once shaped, in cool room 10˚C, showing signs of bursting at the seems and still they performed well in the oven, producing an incredible light crumb for a sourdough.

I know a yeast dough has a far more limited life-span than a sourdough, I’ve over-proved enough by neglect.  It is also the case with yeast loaves using smaller amount of yeast will buy you some more time.  And if wanting even more delay with a yeast dough, make a stiff pre-ferment, or stiff biga or add tiny amount of salt to the poolish/sponge.  These are all choices of procrastination with a yeast dough.

I made a yeast dough as close to my sourdough as possible to prove how it wouldn’t survive the journey, unfair I know.

The previous night I made mild levain as per normal;

• 30g starter
• 100g flour
• 100g water

For the poolish;

• large pinch of dry yeast (just barely 1 gram)
• 100g flour
• 100g water

It became even more clear cutting the doughs, sourdough on the left reacted as you would expect opening up, where’s the yeast dough on the right lay there lifeless, unreactive.

No surprise the yeast loaf (right) came out flat…but…

…and here’s what I thought interesting, it still showed a little sign of rise in the oven…and this made me think…what if?

Below, sourdough.

Below sourdough left, yeast on the right.

Below sourdough.

Below, yeast.

Yes the crumb is mostly dead, the long proving time did exactly what I predicted of killing off the yeast but…

….there’s still signs of activity…

…what if…I made the poolish again but only didn’t push it to its limits?

That’s what I did, in the next post.

I’ve already posted lots of photos on scoring/slashing loaves in this post here, but Nicola asked me last night to show her how, and since I had 2 loaves already in the fridge for baking this morning it would be easy to video scoring them…well easy because I had a second pair of hands to hold the phone, normally I don’t.

The video is very rough and ready and unfortunately not showing a close up of the cut, but it does show how I don’t cut down into the dough but instead sideways.  This sideways cut is what will give room for the dough underneath to rise and cause the nice rip effect, if you cut too deep into the dough itself you’re doing the work on its behalf.  The important thing is to give it a good clean opening for the steam and gas to rise the dough through it.

You don’t have to create that “skin” as I did with the cross loaf, but if you do, notice how I’ve cut sideways on both sides going under the surface of the dough which then creates the cut to make that “peel back” affect once baked.

This post follows on from my last on Bruges, and De Hefter Bistro here.

Here’s the 14 course meal we had for my birthday at Hertog Jan’s restaurant.

The bouquet of roses were waiting for me at our table with a bottle of champagne, they really were the most beautiful roses I’ve received.  This set the evening off to a perfect start thanks to Bikerboy.

We opted for the 6 course dinner without the wines, we had to get through a bottle of bubbly first.

We thought the staff were superb they were efficient, friendly, enthusiastic, smiley and informative, they couldn’t have made the evening flow any better for us.

The bread and h’orderves arrived.  The bread was good, yeast tasting crumb with seeds, the best on this trip.  Maybe you’ve notice my silence on the subject of bread, here in Belgium it tastes just as the badly made bread we encounter through France and have back home.

There was an option of butter or Spanish olive oil to have with the bread, both good.  The butter tasted freshly made but the olive oil was especially delicious, the sort I’m jealous of because I can’t buy it this fresh, young still with plenty of vibrancy.

Below are curry flavoured crisp things, can’t call them papadum as I know them, these had a slight texture of prawn cracker about them, puffy rather than the very thin version of papadum I’m use to.

With them in the black bowl was a cross between mayonnaise and butter mildly curried flavoured, it was on the side of too rich-buttery for me to use as a dip.

These little puff balls were curious, like a savoury meringue texture, with a goose-type pate inside and aniseed on top.  I didn’t dislike them nor love them, somewhere in the middle.

That was followed by small pieces of avocado covered in dusting of tomato powder, served with the Spanish olive oil.

I thought the tomato powder lacked flavour, it’s difficult to pair against the mild flavour of avocado but here the tomato dust could do with some ‘umph’.  This ended up tasting of ripe avocado that was all.

The next dish served at room temperature, a combination of vegetables, on the bottom there was a puree, topped by fish roe, a quail size egg yolk and the foam.  The dish pleasant as a whole but little on the bland side, with the saltiness of the fish roe coming through the most.

I believe the foam was meant to be asparagus flavour, but frothy foams do lack flavour being that they’re air-filled bubbles, and when creating from delicate flavours such as asparagus I wasn’t surprised it didn’t add impact.

The very pretty dish below was quite deceptive, white slices of radishes decorated in this manner gave me the impression of beach/fishy type dish but it wasn’t.

There was a very thin slice of what appeared to be pressed pork terrine with tiny shallots on top with herbs and vinaigrette style dressing, served on the cool side (too cool perhaps).  Here the flavour came from the shallots, vinaigrette and herbs, the pork terrine could’ve been anything.  Good news for Bikerboy as he hates pork terrines.

Next was a potato puree dish with a coffee/vanilla flavour and cheese on top, served between room temperature and just warm.

I could detect a whisper of vanilla but it was the coffee coming through most.  Any savoury dish with coffee flavour reminds me of seeing Heston’s visit to Carlo Cracco’s restaurant in Milan and trying out his coffee and sea urchin risotto.

This dish was the low point of the meal for me, I love coffee and will happily have it alongside a savoury sandwich, the problem I had with it here was being paired against a bland starch potato and a very mild tasting cheese, it didn’t add anything other than dominance.

Now the proper courses start

At this point in the meal Bikerboy thought we had gone through 4 courses out of the six, and with these tiny portions he was preparing himself for something substantial back at the hotel.  By dessert he was struggling, we both were, feared our buttons popping before leaving the restaurant.

The first of two starters, was little cubes of salmon with fish roe on top, radishes and a creamy puree, light well balanced.

The white asparagus had a crisp crunchy texture but not raw, it was sitting on top of a tamarind base, the flavour that took over by the last mouthful.

Below a langoustine with carrots, apricot and citrus.

Occasionally in a meal there will be a single element which was so delicious it will permeated and remain lodged in my brain cells forever, and here it was the citrus droplets on the plate.  The citrus puree transported me to the aroma in the leaves of clementine trees in Portugal.  I want that citrus puree, beautiful fragrance.

The langoustine was on the side of too raw for me in this dish.  I’m guessing it was cooked sous vide, the texture was ok, the problem was the lack of sweet taste.  If you taste a raw langoustine next to a just cooked one, the cooked langoustine’s tastes sweeter, the heat of changing it from its opaque texture into a creamy white seems to bring out its natural sweetness more.

Next came sole with lettuce, the fish was coated in an incredibly thin crispy coating and fried.  Good dish perfectly balanced, the baby lettuces had been dressed in a delicious sauce, couldn’t say what it was.  As a whole this was one of my favourite dish with everything marrying together nicely.

The main course arrived.

We had finished the champagne and were recommended this glass of full bodied Italian red accompanying the black Angus beef and morels.

The beef was tender but shredded tender as appose to when a steak is rare tender, though it wasn’t cooked all the way through as in a casserole.  This made me think about the ups and downs of sous vide.

The whole dish tasted delicious, big flavour from the morels, the sauce was light, not too strong but delicious, all came together perfectly.

The first of three desserts this was our favourite, pineapple and I think the other main flavour was passionfruit.  On the menu given to us at the end of the meal, for some reason this dessert is not listed, I’m writing this from memory.

It was the perfect ending to the meal, refreshing, light not too sweet.  The white long bar was a smooth type of pineapple sorbet, the very thin cylinder next to it was filled with a mousse, little dots of sharp puree with miniature flavoured meringues.

The second dessert was cranberry, yoghurt and mascarpone.  It was ok, tad too sickly sweet, rather than leaving the mouth refreshed it left it cloying with the overall sugar.

What occurred about this dessert was the similarity to the first one, mousse, puree, a frozen fruit part and more miniature meringues, only difference with this dessert was the different shapes.

The last dessert, chocolate, hazelnut and caramel.  All the flavours here were good but…

…can you see those little miniature meringues appearing again?  And can you see how similar in texture it is to the other desserts?

All three desserts were cold and room temperature, all based around mousses and meringues but just with different flavours.

By this time neither of us could eat anymore, the chocolate below were filled with different flavours, I only managed to bite into the dark one for curiosity sake, Bikerboy couldn’t bring himself to touch them.  I would’ve enjoyed them the next day with coffee.

Along with the chocolate came these little cigars pastries filled with caramel.

I wanted to show how beautifully thin they were, these were the size of a thin cigarette.  Being my duty as a taster I bit one and yes, filled with delicious caramel.  What let it down badly was the sugary pastry that started to stick to my teeth as I chewed it.

This reminded me of last year’s birthday meal at Le Champignon Sauvage where the shards of sugar served with scallops (I kid you not!) also stuck to my back teeth.  At least here I was expecting sugar.

I don’t have a photo of the last dish, it was a tiny helping of sweetened potato puree based on that savoury potato dish above, it didn’t add anything to the palate or the completion of the meal, it just felt an odd ending.

How Was The Meal?

The whole evening and the meal was perfect.

OK, I know I picked out things that for me didn’t work or lacked contrast but…I’m analysing and being critical that’s what I do but..here comes the but…if I compare this meal to others I’ve had of similar ilk, overall it was as good;  The Fat Duck, Le Manoir, Waterside Inn, Le Gavroche (with Albert Roux), Ramsay, Le Barnardin (NYC).  In all of those places there were dishes that didn’t dazzle, in the same meal there were dishes which went from ‘wow amazing’  to a  ’urmm nope’  or  ’it’s ok’.

This evening was about the whole experience for me and about trying out something different.  There was excellent cooking and that goes without saying, attention to detail and the hard work showed itself on the plate…

…and from that point the evening was perfect.

It had been almost two years since Bikerboy and I had time on our own, and for my big birthday getaway we stayed two nights in Bruges, Belgium.   I have a big thank you to say to the charming and informative Elizabeth from Elizabeth On Food blog for recommending the gorgeous hotel and the restaurants which turned this weekend into a delightful memorable time away, thanks very much Elizabeth.

We stayed at the Kempinski Hotel right in the centre of the city, tucked away quietly and easily missed if walking past on the main shopping street.  The decor inside reminded me a little of one of our favourite places in London to have a drink, One Aldwych, modern but comfortable, as opposed to the modern austere, ultra designed for everything but reposing.

The city felt a cross between Honfleur in France with cobble narrow streets and Amsterdam in Netherlands with a few waterways running through it.

The whole time we were there it rained but no matter, didn’t stop me putting my nose against shop windows.

At home I’m the only one who’ll eat chips with mayo, but Bikerboy decided it was appropriate for him to do it here.

We wondered into this lovely shop making handmade sweet goodies at the back, the smell was enticing.

Googling the name, Juliette’s, I found a photo stream of it on flickr here.

The first evening we wanted to eat somewhere casual with no fuss as travelling days tend to be long and exhausting, and Elizabeth had suggested De Refter Bistro.

Before the starter we were offered a really delicious small helping of mackerel patê, and another little nibble of parmesan biscuits with a relish.

For starters Bikerboy and I had cured salmon with a lentil salad.  The salad was sharply dressed suiting the thick meaty slices of the fish.

For the main course I had the cod below, perfectly cooked. The blob you see is a sauce but can’t remember now what sauce, it didn’t really add anything to the dish, the flavour was bland.  Came with a side dish of potato puree.

Bikerboy had the meatballs, light and herby and a very generous portion.

We could see the kitchen at work.

We shared a dessert, roasted pineapple with a vanilla parfait.  This was the only dish that disappointed, the pineapple was tossed with fresh chopped mint leaves which dominated the whole dessert, and that’s all I could taste, unusually for this fruit the pineapple flavour was mute.

We both enjoyed the meal, it was exactly what we were after, good food in a casual atmosphere, and cheap to prices here, with a bottle of rosé it came to 130 euros.

We walked back to the hotel, I had a couple of daiquiris in the bar, Bikerboy tried to teach me how to play chess but the rules of the game weren’t sticking in my alcohol filled head.

I remembered how easy it is to drink daiquiri…oh I paid for it…I woke at 2 am gasping for water with throbbing head, then I remembered why I never mix spirits with wine.

The next post I’ll add the photos of my birthday meal – all 14 courses!

I made these yeast rolls today from the same batch of dough, and wanted to share the extraordinary difference in baking them one batch after the other.  I made the dough last night, bulk proved and shaped, then refrigerated overnight, baked this morning.

I pre-heated the oven as usual, added water to the bottom of the oven-tray for steam, into the oven went 2 breakfast loaves and one of the trays with the rolls.  After 25 minutes the brown rolls on the left came out.  I turned the oven down by 10˚C wanting to have the second batch of rolls slightly less brown but wasn’t expecting them to be as anemic as these.

I realised afterwards why?  There was too much steam left in the oven from adding the initial water and from the two loaves still baking in there creating extra steam.

The rolls bake quickly, if they took longer they would gain colour, with too much steam in the oven and more importantly…this is what will allow for the surface of bread to colour…if the surface of the rolls had dried out quicker it would allow for the browning of the crust.

Why A Loaf Browns

The outside of a loaf can’t brown until the surface is completely dried and then the maillard reaction can occur.  Once moisture evaporates the crust browns.

Had I thought about it properly I would remember how a crowded oven creates its own steam, and with baking something quickly I needn’t added the water.

Plain loaf for kid’s breakfast with some honey added, gives it a good toasting effect.

• 1 kg bread flour
• 20g salt
• 7-10g instant dried yeast
• 700g water, warm
• 50g runny honey

Add all together and follow these steps in this post here.

The 4 year old asked for chocolate brownies yesterday and I made these instead, she calls herself the “brownie monster” and when I told her I was making chocolate lamingtons not brownies she made that pout face of disapproval but I converted her as soon as I let her try some of the sponge.

It’s a moist light chocolate sponge and it should be made on its own as a cake not just for lamingtons, and having successfully converted this into a dairy-free version it will be a standby chocolate cake in my home.  It’s so easy to make, what I call the muffin-style cake, simply melt the chocolate and add everything in, pour into the tin and bake.  I used 50% cocoa solids chocolate to keep it sweet enough for the kids.

Not been brought up with lamingtons I didn’t know the sponge isn’t suppose to be chocolate but going by the disapproving comments on Dan’s Guardian page here, I certainly know now!  What’s life without a little controversy?

When making these I did wondered if they had to be a certain shape, in the Guardian they appear as squares, I’m not very good at neat square shapes…felt better when Dan confirmed they can be oblong or blocks…phew.

Dan instructs to cover the sponge with foil in order to keep the surface more even, which works.  I should’ve made the foil more dome shaped as in parts it stuck to the surface of the sponge once risen.

You’ll certainly need a deep normal square tin as the cake rises a fair amount, I have a shallower tin I thought of using and grateful I didn’t.

It took longer than an hour in the recipe, this could have been because of the adaptions I’ve made.  If it takes longer don’t be tempted to turn up the temperature.  Mine took in total: 1 hour 25 mins at 150˚C fan.

Dairy-free & Soya-free Adaptations

Dan’s recipe here

• 300g caster sugar
• 50g cocoa
• 75ml milk – used 75g coconut milk below, but rice milk will also work
• 50g unsalted butter – used 50g dairy-free margarine (salted)
• 50ml sunflower oil
• 4 medium eggs - used 3 large eggs plus one egg yolk
• 100ml low fat yoghurt – used 50g oatly cream

The coconut milk above is not the usual coconut milk you can buy in tins which is quite thick and tastes very coconuty.  This milk is bland and has been a hit with oldest kid and I for all sorts of things like making hot chocolate because the blandness doesn’t interfere with other flavours.

To show how moist the cake is I cut into one below before the chocolate had set.

How Mistakes Are Made

I usually print out the recipe and stick it in front of me like I have below, also helps with writing notes or adjustments.

For the icing I misread the quantity of icing sugar because of the small print.  I added 400g instead of the recipe’s 450g.  This made a huge differences in the icing’s capability to cover the sponge and I photographed it below to show how.

The darker sponges at the back have been coated with icing made with only 400g icing sugar.

The lighter thicker sponges at the front have the correct amount of sugar.

On close up you can see how the thinner icing doesn’t actually coat the sponge properly it runs off the surface.

Every baker should have a little helper to lick the bowl clean.

The coconut I managed to find wasn’t a very good quality one, it was too thick, I would’ve preferred finer one to coat the chocolate better.

These lamingtons were a hit with my friend yesterday who hadn’t eaten one since he visited New Zealand 20 years ago.  The most complicated time consuming part is the coating of the sponge in the icing and then coconut.  I can’t help but get impatient and drip chocolate all over the coconut, that and the dislike I have to make little things I would never make a good pastry chef.

For once I have very little to say on a post, I’m glad since my head is full, have been studying hard and don’t think I could fit another thought.

These are too good to only make them as hot-cross buns, in my household we have fruit buns all year round toasted as above.  I have memories of stopping at the Little Chef and having a toasted tea cake!  I’ve made these following Dan’s recipe in the Guardian here where he uses cider.  I’ve made them twice now, doubling the recipe, both times dairy-free.

The first batch did’t use cider, I didn’t have any and used water, the second time I used pear cider just because I could.  No one commented on differences, I think with the spices and fruit I would be pushed to tell them apart unless perhaps they were eaten side by side.

For personal preference I cut down on the dried fruit quantity by a third and even then it was generous, I’m obviously use to the stint of shop bought buns.

I saw my friend Debs making some chocolate chip version on her blog here, I would like to try that idea using this recipe.  I also cut back on the spices by a third, and along with the mixed spice I added ground allspice.

I replaced the double cream with Oatly cream to make them dairy-free.

Why Sweet Doughs Need Attention

A word of caution when making sweet or rich yeast doughs – you can not ignore/neglect/forget them.  They are far less tolerant to a plain dough..I should know..I like to neglect things.   I’ve mentioned some of this in my post here on yeast doughs.

The longer you leave your dough to rise the more moisture will evaporate.

Don’t over-prove them.  Don’t over-bake them.  That’s if you don’t want to end up with a dry…on the way to being a dehydrated bun…at the end.

sugar is hygroscopic – a little is fine but higher quantities will cause problems especially if taking dough to its limits.

Eggs and fat inhibit gluten development – by stopping the gluten proteins coming into contact with water, they coat flour particles, they act as tenderisers.  (egg whites slightly different)

An easy way to tell if the buns have increased in size on last proving is to leave a small gap in-between them and when they start to kiss you can tell they have risen.

I had to make these much flatter in the second batch in order to fit nicely into our toaster.

Freezing

What I do with any dough like this if I’m freezing is to cut the buns into half first and then freeze them, means I can toast from frozen.  As you can see in the background I also do this with my bagels.

Two years ago I can’t imagine I would be as excited  as I was yesterday about watching David Chang’s Harvard Lecture on “Microbiology: An Overlooked Frontier”  he made in 2011, David is the chef at Momofuku.  This lecture on microbes and their flavour profile is interesting for me personally on two different levels, one because I want to make my own miso paste for allergy kid and on the other level is my interest in sourdough culture.

Tasty Microbes

David Chang talks of a significant moment for him when he attended a lecture by professor Roberto Kolter in 2010 where the professor stated, ‘the future of food is microbiology’.  This started David’s enquiry of different flavours obtained by different micro-organisms and interestingly their place of origin.  I would recommend to watch this lecture, you’ll see in the beginning the mind boggling numbers of microorganisms and their genome by David Weitz, professor of physics at Harvard.

Fermentation Has New Disciples

Fermentation is trendy it seems and so it should be, as a species we’ve always preserved in seasonal glut for the lean times in our calendar.  If more of us are taking up allotments or buying local grown produce makes good sense to have a few jars of goodies for the storecupboard, but we’re not just talking sauerkraut here.  When I visited Hawksmoor over a year ago and saw a burger with kimchi I thought, ‘ hey, this Korean pickle has become main stream’.  Since then I’ve become aware how popular home fermentation has become from the professional kitchens such as Noma and their Nordic Food Lab where they preserve meat, balsamic vinegar, their version of miso paste using Nordic ingredients, to many blog posts and tweets from people busy preserving away.  The book that pops up often is Katz’s Wild Fermentation book, as I plan to make my own miso I’m ordering a copy.

Making Miso

I asked Linda, a chef and creator of  Playing with Fire & Water for any advice she could give on making my own soya-free miso for allergy kid, I remembered she had posted making miso here.  She gave me some good advice and said at the bottom of the email that I might find David Chang’s lecture interesting.

I need to make miso paste that is both soya-free and legume-free for allergy kid because I can’t buy it.  I’ll be ordering the rice koji inoculated with Aspergillus oryzae from a site selling it here, and there’s a great blog post on how to make miso here.  It takes from 6 months to a year, we’ll see if I succeed.

Microorganisms, Environment & Sourdough Starters

I don’t have to point out the obvious that sourdough is a fermentation, an environment where wild fungi and different bacteria thrive in, and as a consequence of that they provide the baker with rise and flavour in the dough resulting in a delicious loaf.  Lucky us.

What struck me watching David’s slides of when he inoculated his pork with aspergillus oryzae, trying to produce  “bonito-style” dried pork shavings (aspergillus oryzae is used for this, miso, soy sauce and other Japanese fermented products), was that on analysing the fungi they found it wasn’t aspergillus oryzae taking hold in the pork but instead it was pichia, a different genus altogether.  Pichia is commonly found on pork preserved products of European countries.  This signified to David how the environment itself, the kitchen in his restaurant in New York was dictating what grew on the products he’s trying to preserve.  For David this was an exciting step and if you watch the lecture he explains why.  For me this showed clear evidence about sourdough starters and their environment which I wrote about last year.

A few weeks ago I was having a conversation with Anne about microorganisms and sourdough, she is known on this site as the miller of  Felin Ganol watermill, producing some of the tastiest flour I’ve worked with, well, what you may not know about Anne is her background in biology, specialising in microbiology and biochemistry and in fact she has a PhD.  I should really refer to her as Dr Anne Parry but knowing her I’m not sure she would appreciate it.  In this conversation Anne said, the only way to keep a microbe “pure” was to keep it in a sterile environment.  David’s presentation slides of his pork being inoculated with aspergillus oryzae but finding pichia  growing wasn’t a surprise, but gave me an “aha!” moment.  Those moments where connections are made, where different learnings come together nicely, connections was something Linda wrote about in her blog last year.

Remember in my post  Life Cycle of Sourdough Starter Part I, I said how it was pointless to have sourdough starters from around the world because they won’t keep their individual characteristics?  The reason being as research shows and Debra Wink brought it to our attention, the microbes in your starter will be determine by its environment, the flour, the feeding schedule and the temperature it’s kept at, the starter will evolve with what’s around it.  David’s slide of aspergillus oryzae and pichia gave me that moment of  “aha!”  yes of course…it makes sense, it all ties in together, microbes and their environmental evolvement, to adapt and survive, that’s what they do best, be it in preserved products or in our sourdough starters.