Give us our daily bread

Years ago when my children were much younger I baked bread religiously every week. Three 1llb loaves; two in the freezer, one out for eating. No hassle, no-knead bread.

I used a recipe I found in the Cranks Recipe Book (it's a well used book as you can tell) which, in turn was based on Doris Grant's 1940's recipe. I adapted the Cranks version to half wholemeal & half white as a concession to the children and I think it made a lighter loaf too. I used malt or treacle instead of sugar too.

It kept well and made fabulous toast!

I recently, via a long & twisting thread through Facebook, came across a similar recipe for No Knead Bread and was inspired once more.

Recipe:

3 cups (750g) bread flour

1/4 tsp dried yeast

1tsp salt

1-1.5 cups (250ml-375ml) tepid water

Mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl then add 1 cup of water and stir. You're looking for a soft, very sticky mix.

Cover & leave 12-20 hours at room temperature.

Scrape the gloop onto a well floured board & gently shape into a ball. Tuck the ends under to tighten the skin on top.

As you can see from the bubbles, it just doesn't want to stop rising!

You'll need, preferably, a high sided pot suitable for the oven. Doesn't matter if you haven't got one, your bread will just be long instead of high. Perfect for an enormous picnic sandwich if you want to slice it horizontally!

Oil & flour the pot to stop the bread sticking, cover & leave for 2 more hours.

(I made some apricot jam while I was waiting!)

Difficult to tell here but it's now twice the size.

So, into the oven once your bread had risen. 250C for 20 minutes or brown & sounding hollow when the base is tapped.

I then turned it out if the pan & popped it back in for 5 minutes to crisp the base.

MrP & I couldn't wait until it cooled to test! The crust was crispy in a French stick kind of way and the taste was amazing, even before the buttering. Very crumpety!

Definitely a winner.

Rhubarb & Elderflower Jam

I recently read online that elderflower makes a delicious addition to rhubarb jam. One of the best spring jams in my opinion is gooseberry & elderflower so I'm game! Want to have a go?

1kg chopped rhubarb

1kg sugar or jam sugar

5-6 elderflower blooms

Juice of 1/2 lemon (omit if using jam sugar)

I had some early forced rhubarb in the freezer. It's such a gorgeous colour and delicate flavour I thought it might work really well with the flowers.

For my kilo of sliced rhubarb I picked about 6 heads of elderflower. Pick the blooms that are almost going over but not brown...smell them! They're the ones with the best flavour. If they smell good, they'll taste good.

 

After giving them a shake to dislodge any hitchhikers pop them in a muslin sheet or jelly bag (just in case there are any bionic crawlers surviving your shake) at the bottom of a large bowl.

Add the rhubarb on top then sprinkle with the sugar.

 

Cover with a clean tea towel & leave, in the fridge, for 24 hours if you can, or overnight if you can't wait. The sugar will draw out the moisture in the fruit which will in turn soak the elder flowers & absorb the flavour and perfume.

When you're ready to start jamming, drain the elder flowers over the rhubarb for 15-20 minutes and sterilise your jars & lids while your're waiting.

Pop the fruit, sugar & lemon juice, if using, mixture into a large pan and heat gently to boiling point. Turn up the heat & bring to a rapid boil, testing for setting point every 5 minutes or so.

When setting point is reached pour into your jars and get those lids on as soon as you can while the jam is hot.

Leave to cool, label then enjoy! 

Let me know what you think.

Lynn 

If stress burned calories...

My youngest is leaving home next week.

It's a fact of life...my children have grown up. How did that happen? I'm sure I kept an eye out for that sort of thing.

I savoured every moment, from them being small to tall, and it still doesn't seem enough.

Add this to house clearing for our own move out of the county and I should be a size 10 not this wobbly, sleep deprived harridan blogging at 3am on a Tuesday morning.

Squished plums.

In my mind there are few jams that are nicer than damson. It's such an old fashioned jam but, talking to my customers, it seems that all but the hardiest of jam makers won't bother with it.
Because of the stones.

Many of my older customers prefer the stones being left in & claim the resulting jam is tastier. Personally I can't tell the difference and I hated it when my mum made it because she left the stones in & I couldn't be bothered picking them out.

I have to confess it was a dilemma when I first started making it a few years ago though. There was no way I wanted to sit de-stoning the kilos of fruit we collected!

I finally came up with the following method which works just as well on small wild plums and cherries.

Damson Jam
You will need:
Damsons (or wild plums)
Sugar
water
2 large pans
colander

Add your fruit (fresh or frozen*) to a large pan and add sufficient water to just touch the bottom of the fruit on the top layer.

Bring to the boil and simmer gently for a few minutes until the fruit is soft.

Leave to cool to a temperature comfortable enough to handle with your hands.

Tip the fruit & water into another pan through a colander then, using your hands, begin to squeeze the fruit through the colander (I use a kneading motion, like making bread). 

Wild yellow plums

This will ensure you get some skins in with your pulp but very few stones. If you prefer no skins use a sieve instead of the colander.

Continue until just the stones and some skins are left. Make sure all the fruit pulp is scraped off the colander and pick out more skins if you have a preference (I love them, they add 'fizz' to the jam).

Now measure the amount of pulp in the pan.

Damson pulp

You will need equal quantities of sugar to pulp. Here I had 2 litres of pulp so added 2kg of sugar.

Bring the contents of the pan to a boil, stirring from time to time until a roiling boil is reached.

Damson Jam coming to a rolling boil.

There is usually quite a lot of foam with damsons. This can either be skimmed off if you find it unsightly or adding a knob of butter will help disperse it. Sometimes it can be stirred evenly through the jam once it's off the heat. This particular batch was very foamy so I skimmed it but the yellow plum only had a small amount which I stirred in once it was off the heat.

Continue to boil until setting point has been reached then pour into sterilised jars and cover with lids.

2kg of damsons, with the sugar, will make approximately 7llb of jam.

*damsons, plums & cherries are excellent to freeze