Allinson Bread with Sourdough

The late Thomas Allinson, who was a British doctor and a dietetic reformer, left us a very tasteful and healthy bread, bearing his name. This Allinson bread is a whole grain bread and contains no additions, so just (full wheat) flour, (much) water, (not so much) yeast and salt. I tried to bake an Allinson using a poolish, based on my own rye-based sourdough and just very little yeast. I posted about making a sourdough starter before (Sourdough Bread with Spelt). Because I have never seen an Allinson 'free-form' bread, and because the dough is very wet, 75% hydration, I use a loaf pan for baking.
I think that the result is very satisfying; the bread tastes great and has a nice crumb!
The evening before baking the bread I make my poolish:

poolish:
- 150 g full wheat flour
- 150 g water
- 1 tsp sourdough

In a medium bowl, whisk together the water and a teaspoon of sourdough. Add the flour and mix it until a smooth dough forms. Cover the bowl with plastic and let it develop during the night at room temperature.

The next morning the poolish will be ready for use: some air bubbles are visible at the surface and they are proof that the sourdough has developed well. Now you can make your dough.

dough:
- 350 g full wheat flour
- 225 g warm water
- 9 g salt
- 3 g dry yeast

Add the water and the flour to the poolish and stir until the flour has absorbed the fluid. Now leave it to rest for half an hour, covered with plastic wrap and allow the flour to hydrate. After this 'autolyse' add the salt and the yeast. Knead the dough in the bowl, using a rubber spatula and after a few minutes you can transfer the dough to the working surface. Don't dust it with flour, because the dough must stay very wet. I usually knead wet dough the Bertinet way. This way of kneading is actually a constant stretching and folding the dough, using your fingertips. Check my post about Sourdough Bread with Spelt for a more detailed explanation. After about 10 minutes of kneading the dough is ready for the the first proofing. Put it in a wet bowl and cover it with plastic wrap (I always use a transparent plastic pedal bin liner for this). Let it proof for about 40 minutes on a warm place (e.g. on a rack on the warming plate)..
After the first proofing, transfer the dough to a wet working surface, flatten it with your wet hands and form the bread so that it will fit in your loaf pan. You have to act very fast, because the dough will absorb the water from your hands and the working surface and becomes slippery and hard to handle. For baking Allinson bread I use a Chicago Metallic non-stick 1 lb loaf pan, measuring 21 x 11 cms, it works very well! Only grease it a little with some oil before putting in the dough and the bread will come out easily. Wrap your filled loaf pan in a plastic pedal bin liner and put it on a warm place for the final proofing. The dough is done rising when it has doubled in size and crested about 1 cm over the top of the loaf pan (it can take almost two hours, because full wheat flour isn't proofing very quickly).
Bake the bread in the roasting oven (half high) and put a baking tin filled with hot water under the rack for creating steam. Let it bake for about 15 minutes and transfer it to the baking oven for another 30 tot 35 minutes (also half high). You don't need any steam in the baking oven. When baking time is halfway, I always turn the bread, so that left and right side become equally coloured.

I have made several photos of the different stages of the kneading and proofing process:

ready for autolyse

ready for kneading

after the kneading

before the final proofing

after the proofing

after the baking

White Buns from the Aga

Last night, Christmas Eve, we had a great family dinner and today we decided to stay at home and do whatever we we like best. That means (also): baking bread! This morning I managed to bake very tasty and soft white buns. The recipe I followed is a combination of several, found on the internet.

Ingredients:
- 500 g wheat flour
- 200 g water
- 100 g milk
- 20 g butter
- 20 g honey
- 8 g dry yeast
- 8 g salt
- some melted butter for brushing

Method:
Mix the milk with the water, the honey and the butter and place it on the warming plate to warm up. Put the flour in a bowl and add salt and yeast, whisk it until well mixed. Put it also on the warming plate. At the moment all the ingredients are warmed up to somewhat over room temperature you can mix it in the mixing bowl, using a rubber spatula. When the dough is going to form a ball, transfer it to your working surface and start kneading it for at least 10 minutes. I prefer the Bertinet method: I wrote about this way of kneading in my previous posts about baking bread.
When the dough is ready (stick your finger in the dough, lift it and when it is falling down after a few seconds without leaving any dough sticking to your finger, it's ready), transfer it to a clean bowl, cover it with plastic and let it proof for an hour or so. It has to double in volume, when it is not very warm in your kitchen, put the bowl on a rack on the warming plate.

After this take out the dough and transfer it to the working surface (no dusting with flour is needed), flatten the dough with your both hands and form a thick sausage, which you cut in 11 pieces, all weighing about 75 g. Use your dough scraper for this, or a sharp knife. Let the pieces rest for about 10 minutes.
Now flatten the pieces again, and fold the outsides in, forming a ball with sufficient tense on the surface of the dough. Roll them with your hand and place them seam down on a baking tin, covered with baking paper, a few centimeters apart. Cover them with plastic again and let them proof until have doubled in size (about an hour or more, if necessary on a rack on the warming plate).

When the buns are ready for baking, remove the plastic, brush the tops with melted butter and bake them in the roasting oven, half high. Create steam by putting a baking tin on the floor of the oven and pouring a glass of hot water in it. Bake for about 10 minutes and transfer the buns to the baking oven for another 5 to 10 minutes.

Sourdough based Filone

Now that the mushroom season is over and winter is entering the country, I decided to post again about baking bread. Baking bread is definitely my favorite hobby! This (American) recipe is from Daniel Leader (Bread Alone Bakery) and I found it on the internet: saveur.com. The only thing I changed is using sourdough instead of yeast making the poolish. And I had to convert all the American measures (cups, tblsps, tsps, oz.'s and libs) to grams.... And I had to find out how the dough could be baked best in an Aga. Well, I am satisfied with the result. I hope it inspires other Aga-owners! Good luck!

Rather funny: I am European and I use an American recipe for baking an Italian loaf! A filone is the Italian version of the French baguette (more or less...). The dough is also very wet (about 70% hydration), but olive oil is added and I don't know any recipes of making baguette using oil. This is how I did it:

The evening before making the filone (this recipe is for 2 loafs), I make the poolish, using my own rye-based sourdough. I posted about making a sourdough starter before (check my post about sourdough bread with spelt for this).

poolish:
- 85 g wheat flour
- 75 g water (temp. about 40º C)
- 1 tsp sourdough

In a medium bowl, whisk together the water and the sourdough. Add the flour and mix it until a smooth dough forms. Cover the bowl with plastic and let it rest during the night at room temperature.

dough:
- the poolish
- 450 g wheat flour
- 300 g water (temp. about 40º C)
- 5 g dry yeast
- 12 g salt
- 70 g olive oil

The next morning you can make the dough: add the water en the yeast to your poolish and stir until it forms a homogene fluid. Now add flour, salt and oil and mix it well. It does not look like a dough yet; it has become a kind of a 'shaggy mass'. Now cover the bowl with plastic wrap and allow the flour to hydrate for about half an hour. This process is called autolyse.

After the autolyse you can start the kneading. First knead the dough in the bowl using a rubber spatula and after a few minutes transfer the dough to your working surface (not floured). Knead it for about 10 minutes the Bertinet way: check my post about Sourdough Bread with Spelt where I explained the Bertinet method. When the dough becomes rather smooth and elastic (still sticky to the touch, but releasing from your hands fairly easily), use a dough scraper to transfer it to a clean bowl for proofing at room temperature. Cover the bowl with plastic.
The original recipe tells me that it needs two hours proofing, but in my opinion the dough needs a firm stretch and fold halfway the proofing: take it out and use one hand and a dough scraper to stretch the dough and fold it back over itself a few times (west over east, north over south, etc.). Weekend Bakery published an instruction video about this technique.

After the dough has been doubled in size, put a well floured thick cotton tea towel on a baking tin, roll up the left and right side en lift the center, so that you create two long, thin forms to put your both loafs in when you have formed them. Take out the dough, transfer it to a well floured working surface, cut it in two equal sized pieces, and flatten slightly. Fold the top and the bottom edges of one piece toward the middle, and flatten the dough at the seam with the palm of your hand. Roll it over a few times, to get a nice shaped bread. Put it, seam side down, on the prepared towel and repeat the folding and shaping procedure with the second piece of dough.
Cover it with plastic wrap and let it proof for about an hour and a half.at room temperature.

Bake the bread (after scoring them twice with a razor blade) on a baking stone on the bottom of the roasting oven, with a tin filled with hot water to create steam. After half an hour transfer the bread to the baking oven (half high) for another 10 to 15 minutes.

Savory Porcini Mushroom Pie

The porcini season has started at last. Our forests are harboring so many delicious mushrooms at the moment, and we are so fond of looking for (and picking) them! And our favorites are the porcini, or penny buns, or cep (in Dutch their name is eekhoorntjesbrood, which means 'bread for squirrels'...). At this time of the year we use them every day of the week for cooking a great risotto ai funghi, baking them for accompanying the meat, making gorgeous omelets with them, or we dry them on the warming plate of the Aga for later use.

Today, I have made a great savory pie.....
This recipe is based on puff pastry. And because I dislike the deep frozen ready to use puff pastry you can buy in the supermarket, I always prepare some myself. Not the difficult way, but so-called rough puff pastry. This is how I do it:

 Ingredients:
- 250 g wheat flour
- 250 g cold salted butter
- 125 g ice cold water
- 4 g salt

Method:
Mix the flour with the salt and mix in the butter, which has been cut in small cubes (let the butter become ice cold for this: put it in the freezer for half an hour or so). I use my KitchenAid for this. What a perfect machine that is! When the mass is transformed to a substance that looks like bread crumb, you can add the water and transform it into a ball of dough. Don't knead it! Wrap it in plastic and put it in the freezer for at least half an hour.
Put your dough on a lightly floured working surface and roll it out to a 10 x 30 cm rectangle. Fold the end which is closest to you over the dough for one third and fold the other end over it. Now you end up with a perfect(!) square. Turn the dough 90 degrees and repeat this process. Don't expect that this is an easy job! The dough will become better to handle later on...
Wrap your dough in plastic again and put it back in the freezer for at least half an hour.
Once the pastry has rested follow the rolling and folding process again; after half an hour in the freezer the pastry is ready for use. Now the moment has come to make your pie.

Ingredients:
- 100 g peeled and chopped walnuts
- 3 chopped shallots
- 2 chopped cloves of garlic
- 200 g bacon in small strips
- (at least) 500 g sliced fresh porcini
- a splash of olive oil
- a bunch of fresh thyme, finely chopped
- a bunch of chopped parsley
- 4 eggs
- 150 g heavy cream
- pepper (and perhaps some salt)

Method:
Heat the olive oil in a large skillet on the hot plate and cook and stir the shallot in it until tender. Add the bacon and after a few minutes the garlic and the mushrooms. Now transfer your skillet to the simmering plate and let it cook until the mushrooms are reduced to about half. Season to taste with pepper (and perhaps some salt). Now put the mixture in a mixing bowl, add the walnuts and in case the mixture is very wet, poor most of the moist in the skillet again and let it reduce on the hot plate. Add the reduced moist to the mixture again and let it cool down a bit.

Now put the puff pastry in a 24 cm spring form pan (greased and floured) and line bottom and sides. Beat the eggs with the cream and the herbs, mix it well with the mushroom filling and poor the mixture in you pan. Use some left over pastry to make a nice looking pie and brush it with some egg. Put the pie high in the baking oven for an hour at least, until the crust is golden. Very often I keep it in the oven for an hour and a half and cover the surface with a sheet of aluminium foil, to prevent it fromm getting too brown.

Klik hier om dit recept in het Nederlands te lezen.

Torta de Mele facile (simple apple tart)

There are so many ways to make an apple tart and most recipes are rather complicated. And they also take some time and skill. But this (Italian) recipe is that simple and the result is that delicious, that I consider it my favorite. I thank my friend Ellen for sharing this recipe!

Ingredients:
- 350 g self raising flour
- 225 g cold salted butter
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- some salt
- 125 g raisins (welded if dry)
- 175 g granulated sugar
-  75 g chopped walnuts
- 500 g apples (I always use 'goudreinet')
- lemon zest (from a whole lemon)
- 4 eggs
- cane sugar for finishing

Method:
For the ingredients mentioned above I use a backing pan which measures 24 cms. Grease it by using some melted butter and cover the bottom with baking paper. Mix the flour with the cinnamon, the salt and the butter (sliced in small pieces) until it looks like bread crumb. I use my KitchenAid for that. Then add the raisins, the walnuts, the lemon zest and the sugar. Use a rubber spatula for mixing. Now peel your apples, remove the cores and slice them. Add them to your mixture. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs and whisk them in the mixture..
Fill your baking pan and place it for about an hour and a half or more in the baking oven. After half an hour baking, cover the tart with some aluminium foil for about 45 minutes, to prevent the top from getting too dark.
Finish it using the cane sugar and let it cool on a rack before removing it from the baking pan. Buon appetito! 

PS: a good friend of mine who is on a strict gluten free diet is a great fan of this recipe. She uses a gluten free mixture instead of the self raising flour with great results. This easy way of making a tart needs no building up a base of dough, a task that is very difficult when you don't have any gluten in the dough. The product used for replacing the wheat flour is produced by a German company, named Schär. The product itself is named 'mixture C: Kuchen & Kekse". It is available in Europe, but I am not sure that it can be bought in the US.

Klik hier om dit recept in het Nederlands te lezen.

Risotto with Confit de Canard and Sulfur Fungus

 As I promised in one of my previous blogs I would post as soon as we found parasol mushrooms or porcini in the wild. But today we found a wonderful bunch of sulfur fungus... and a few baby porcini. So I made a great risotto, using the mushrooms and some delicious confit de canard (duck confit, or actually goose confit).

In almost every risotto recipe you are instructed to stir the boiling 'risotto to be' for almost 25 minutes. Because I think that (for instance) drinking wine is much more fun than stirring rice on a hot stove, you will find out that in my way of making risotto the AGA is doing most of the work. So I can have my glass of wine....

Ingredients:

- a bunch of sulfur fungus (about 250 g)

- some parsley

- olive oil

- 1 onion, chopped

- 1 clove of garlic, chopped

- 2 fresh bay leaves (or 1 if dried)

- about 5 or 6 branches of thyme

- 2 ready cooked goose or duck legs (confit de canard), about 500 g

- 300 g Alborio rice

- about 1 liter chicken broth

- 1 glass dry white wine

- salted butter

- 100 g grated cheese (not necessarily Parmesan!)

- salt and pepper

Method:
First prepare the mushrooms: clean and slice them and bake them in a small pan with some olive oil on the boiling plate for a few minutes. Add pepper and salt. Now transfer the mushrooms to the simmering oven (no lid on the pan yet) en let them simmer for 10 minutes. Take them out, add the chopped parsley and put the pan with the lid on on the warming plate.
Now it is time for the risotto! Prepare the risotto in a pan with a thick bottom (I use a cast iron one for this) and warm it on the boiling plate. Put a splash of olive oil in it (be generous!) and when the oil is (not to) hot, add the chopped onion and garlic. Stir for only a minute or so and transfer the pan to the simmering plate. After 2 or 3 minutes, add the rice and keep stirring until the rice has absorbed all the oil and becomes translucent. Prevent that the rice is sticking to the bottom of your pan! Then add the prepared mushrooms and the confit (of which you have removed the bones and have cut the meat in pieces). Stir for another 5 minutes, if necessary transferring the pan from the simmering plate to the boiling plate and back a few times.
Now add the white wine, stir until the rice has absorbed it and add all the broth in one time. Stir until the risotto is boiling (use the boiling plate). Add the herbs (thyme and bay leave), pepper and salt and put your risotto in the simmering oven for about 20 minutes. Don't put a lid on the pan.
You can take your risotto out a few times for stirring; do so if you feel the urge. But I don't think it is necessary.
After 20 minutes your risotto should be ready for finishing it. If not, leave it for some time in the simmering oven. You can find out by tasting it: the rice should be al dente.
Finish the risotto by adding a table spoon butter and some grated cheese. Stir well (if the risotto is to firm to your taste, you can add some hot water). Put the lid on the pan and leave it for a couple of minutes on the warming plate before serving. Buon appetito!

Chanterelles with Cream

 

Yes!!! The mushroom season has started!. 

Every year, just when summer has begun, we collect lots of wild mushrooms. At first, there are the Chanterelles (we can't find any Morels in this part of the country, which grow much earlier in the year. Pity..). After a few weeks the Chanterelles are followed by  Porcini (Cep or Penny Buns) and Parasol mushrooms. I will post about them the moment we get them! But for now: it's Chanterelle time! 

How do we prepare Chanterelles? Simply, very simply. Because these mushrooms have a wonderful flavour and a great taste just by themselves, I think it is madness to add to many ingredients to them. Just clean them, cut the bigger ones in halves and bake them in a small pan for a few minutes in salted butter on the boiling plate and for about 5 minutes on the simmering plate. When most of the liquid has come out of the mushrooms, add some salt and pepper and put your pan in the cooking oven for 10 to 15 minutes. After this, let it rest on the warmingplate and start preparing the rest of your dinner. When the meat is ready, add some cream and freshly chopped parsley and heat your Chanterelles again on the boiling plate (let most of the liquid evaporate). Your Chanterelles are ready to accompany your meat. For instance tenderloin, which we had for dinner tonight. Marvelous!!!

No Nonsense Full Wheat Bread

I usually bake bread in the weekends and because I love bread that is based on a poolish with sourdough, I must prepare the poolish the evening before. The next morning, when the poolish is ready, I can start my baking. So almost every Sunday we have fresh bread.
Last Saturday night I forgot my poolish preparation (to much wine?), so I decided to make a poolish based on dry yeast, as it only takes 3 hours to develop. Bertinet helped me for a recipe: in his book Dough he published a way to make 100% full wheat bread, based on a poolish with dry yeast. Because I don't do any stretches and folds I called it No Nonsense Bread....

Poolish:
- 250 g full wheat flour
- 250 g water
- 3 g dry yeast

Dissolve the yeast in the water and mix it well with the flour. Let the poolish develop in a bowl, covered with plastic (put it in a plastic pedal bin liner) and place the bowl on a rack on the warming plate of the Aga for about 3 hours (not longer then 5 hours). The poolish is ready for use when it starts collapsing a little after it almost doubled in volume.

Ingredients:
- 250 g full wheat flour
- 80 g water
- 10 g salt
- 3 g dry yeast

Mix the flour and the water with the poolish until the flour has absorbed all the liquid. No kneading yet! Leave the mass, covered with plastic, for half an hour on the rack on the warming plate for a process that is called autolyse.
After this autolyse mix the salt and the yeast in the dough and start kneading "the Bertinet way". Check my previous post about making Spelt Bread for an explanation of this way of kneading dough for 10 to 15 minutes. When the dough is ready (not sticking any more to the work surface and your hands), put it in a lightly floured bowl, cover it and let it rest for 15 minutes.
After this rest you can shape the bread by putting the dough on a sligthly floured work surface (my work surface for kneading is a tile of chinese black stone, it works very well!) and form it into a batard. Check this Hamelman video for learning how to shape a bread. Put the dough in a wicker basket plated with floured linen and let it (covered with plastic) proof for almost an hour on the warming plate. After proofing and scoring the bread with a razor blade bake the bread for about 45 minutes in the roasting oven. Don't forget to create a humid atmosphere! A detailed explanation how to use the roasting oven for baking bread you can find on my post about making Spelt Bread.

Baguette with Spelt and Sourdough

This way of making baguettes is inspired by (again) Weekend Bakery's recipe of their 80% hydration baguettes, but I use sourdough and some spelt and less water (70% hydration).
I am very satisfied with the result: the crust is great and the baguettes taste wonderful!

Poolish:

- 100 g spelt flour
- 200 g wheat flour
- 300 g water
- 15 g sourdough culture

Start the evening before baking the baguettes by making the poolish: mix the ingredients in a bowl and cover it by using a plastic pedal bin liner. Keep the poolish for an hour at room temperature and then put it in the fridge during the night. The next morning you can let your poolish develop at room temperature again and leave it until you start making your baguettes (let's say at noon, so you will have fresh bread at 4.00 PM).

Ingredients:

- the poolish
- 300 g wheat flour
- 120 g water
- 10 g salt
- 3 g dry yeast

Mix the poolish with the flour and the water and let this 'not-yet-dough' rest for half an hour at room temperature. This process is called autolyse. After this autolyse add the salt and the dry yeast and knead the dough for about 8 to 10 minutes. Check my previous post about making Sourdough Bread with Spelt for the kneading technique I learned from Richard Bertinet.
Put the dough in a bowl, cover it with plastic and let it rest for 3 quarters of an hour on a rack on the warming plate of the Aga.
Take out the dough and do 2 complete stretch and folds (see my post about Sourdough Bread again for this technique) and put the dough back in the bowl. Cover it and let it rest for 45 minutes on the warming plate. Repeat this procedure 2 times, but one complete stretch and fold will do. So all together 3 stretch and folds and 2 and a half hours rest.
Now take out the dough, put it on a slightly floured working surface and divide it in 3 portions. Preshape the portions by flattening them and fold them 3 times so they look like miniature baguettes. Let them rest on the working surface for 10 minutes, covered with plastic, before you roll them out to shape them. Check this YouTube instruction video by Jeff Hamelman how to preshape and shape baguettes.
Now it is time for proofing: I use a well floured thick cotton tea towel for this, the way Hamelman shows in his instruction video. Let you your baguettes proof for about half an hour.
Score them 5 times (instruction video) and bake them in a very humid roasting oven for about 35 minutes.

French croissants "the Hamelman way"

As I explained before, I think that bread should only consist of flour, water, salt and yeast. But... I am fond of croissants and Ed and Marieke inspired me by publishing their great croissants making video. So I started to make croissants "the Hamelman way" a few weeks ago for the first time in my Aga. It was a disaster! The croissants were ugly, the butter was far to warm and emerging through the dough, my working surface was greasy and sticky, etc. Next week I tried again: disaster number 2. Ugly croissants, but they tasted great! This weekend I followed the instructions from the Weekend Bakery more strictly and the result is satisfying.

How did I do it?

Dough:

- 500 g wheat flour

- 140 ml cold water

- 140 ml cold milk

- 50 g sugar

- 40 g soft (salted) butter

- 11 g dry yeast

- 8 g salt

Further:

- a packet of cold (salted) butter (250 g)

- 1 egg for the egg wash 

The evening before baking the croissants you prepare the dough. Mix the ingredients and knead it for a few minutes so it becomes a nice, homogeneous dough. Wrap the dough in plastic and let it rest during the night in the fridge.

The next day, take the butter from the fridge and place it on a piece of baking paper on a cold working surface. Slice the butter with a cold knife in 8 slices of 1.25 cm thick: as the butter in Holland is sold in packets that measure 7 cm x 3 cm x 10 cm, you can form an almost square: 12 x 14 cm. Now put another piece of baking paper on top and pound the butter with a rolling pin until it measures 19 x 19 cm. It has to become a perfect square, use a knife to shape the edges, pound it again, use a knife again.... success! Put the butter in the fridge again.

Now take out the dough from the fridge, flour your working surface lightly and roll out the dough to a perfect square, measured 27 x 27 cm.

Take out the butter square from the fridge (it has to be cold but still pliable) and place it on the dough: the points of the butter square have to be centered along the sides of the dough. Now fold the dough over the butter, like an envelope. The dough must cover the butter entirely. You end up with a perfect square dough, with the butter completely sealed inside. Hamelman published some very instructive pictures on this site.

Now flour your dough lightly on both sides and roll it out, very gently, to a piece which measures about 20 x 60 cm. Fold it letter style: pick up one short end of the dough and fold it back over the dough, leaving one third of the other end of dough exposed. Then fold the exposed dough over the folded side. Put the dough on a baking sheet, cover it with plastic wrap and put it for 20 minutes in your freezer for relaxing and chilling.

Repeat the rolling and folding and freezing two more times, every time rolling the dough until it measures about 20 x 60 cm. Put your dough in plastic again and put it in your fridge.
The next morning it is time to make your croissants! Take the dough from the fridge and roll it out on a lightly floured working surface to a piece of 20 x 112 cm. Take your time for it and press your rolling pin only lightly. Now you can cut 15 triangles out of the dough: the short side of the triangles measure 12,5 cm, both long sides measure about 22 cm. Roll the triangles into croissants, brush them with the egg wash (made of the egg and a tablespoon of water) and let them proof on a rack on the warming plate of your Aga for almost 2 hours. Bake them in your roasting oven for only 4 or 5 minutes, transfer them to the baking oven and let them bake for another 12 to 15 minutes.

The best video to watch on YouTube about making croissants is of course this one: the late and great Julia Child!

Pain Rustique

Besides spelt bread I am fond of Pain Rustique. There are many recipes to be found, but I use the method published by Ed and Marieke (Weekend Bakery). This bread is a little sour by using rye-based sourdough culture and it needs only a little bit of yeast. Because of using sourdough I make a poolish the evening before making the bread, so I can start baking the next morning. For making a sourdough culture yourself, please check one of my previous posts.

Poolish:
- 225 g wheat flour
- 60 g whole wheat flour
- 280 g water
- 12 g sourdough culture

Mix the ingredients in a bowl and cover it (I always put the bowl in a transparent pedal bin liner) and let it rest during the night at room temperature. The next morning you can start making the Pain Rustique:

Ingredients:
- the poolish
- 275 g wheat flour
- 90 g water
- 10 g salt
 - 3 g dry yeast

Mix the poolish with the flour and the water for only a minute, just until the flour has absorbed the water. Now cover the bowl and let it rest for half an hour. After this you can add the salt and the yeast and start kneading on a flat, clean surface (don't use any extra flour at this stage!) until the dough is ready. It needs some experience to understand when you reach this 'ready'-point: the dough turns into a soft, flexible substance and shines a little. And yes, it is (very) wet... It usually takes about 5 minutes kneading. Again I mention Richard Bertinet, whose method I use for kneading. You can find an instruction video on YouTube: The Bertinet Method. You can also check my post about making Spelt Bread for more information about kneading wet dough.
Now transfer your dough to a clean bowl, cover it and let it rest for about 40 minutes at room temperature.
Now it is time for the stretch-and-fold technique: take out the dough and place it on your work surface. Don't use any flour yet: just your hands and a clean dough-scraper. Put your scraper partly under the dough and stretch it by using your free hand. Fold the stretched part over the dough. Now do this four times: up over under, left over right, under over up and right over left. A great instruction video you can find here.
After this stretch and fold the dough goes back in the bowl for another half hour's rest on room temperature.
After this a second stretch and fold and another half hour's rest.
Now it is time for shaping your bread and for the first time you can use some flour to make the dough easier to handle. Put your dough on a floured work surface and sprinkle some flour on it. Now shape the dough with your floured hands. For Pain Rustique I form it into a batard and put it in a cane banneton to proof for at least half an hour. For proofing I put the banneton (covered in plastic) on a rack on the warming plate of my Aga. My oval banneton I ordered at the Weekend Bakery Webshop: it works very well!
The best instruction video you can find on YouTube for shaping bread is probably this one.
After proofing and scoring the bread with a razor blade it is time for the Aga: bake the bread in the roasting oven for about 45 minutes. In my post about baking Spelt Bread I described how I use my roasting oven for baking bread. Don't forget to create steam by pouring some hot water in a baking tin.

Carrot Cake

I got this recipe of a carrot cake from my friend Monique Kok (the original recipe is on the pic below, in Dutch). I adjusted it a bit by adding less sugar and adding salt, because I think that also 'sweet' bakings always need salt. And the cake needed more time in my Aga than in the recipe: I left it over one hour and a half in the baking oven and it came out perfect!

Ingredients:
125 g sunflower oil
400 g sugar
4 eggs
300 g self raising flour
2 teaspoons cinnamon (powder)
2 teaspoons nutmeg (powder)
1 teaspoon clove (powder)
1 teaspoon salt
300 g carrot (grated)
100 g crushed walnut

Method:
Mix the oil and the sugar and add the eggs. Mix well, until the sugar is all solved. Then add the powdered spices and the salt. Finally you can add the flour and the grated carrots. Make it a homogene mass and work the crushed walnuts in the dough.
Put it in a well prepared baking tin (greased and powdered with flour) and place it in the baking oven.
After about one and a half hour your carrot cake will be ready. Check this with a toothpick: when it comes out dry your cake will be fine.

Sourdough Bread with Spelt

In my opinion bread consists of only four ingredients: flour, water, salt and (some) yeast. I learned preparing the best dough for baking fantastic breads from the book Dough of Richard Bertinet. And this recipe for a perfect Spelt bread by using sourdough I got from Ed and Marieke. They have a fantastic website about baking bread: the Weekend Bakery.

The evening before the day I bake my bread I make a poolish by mixing flour, spelt, water and sourdough. I use a rye-based sourdough starter, which is already a half year old. I keep it in the fridge and feed it with some teaspoonfuls of rye once or twice a week, after I have used some of it for my poolish. Please check the website of Ed and Marieke for their method of making the starter.

Poolish:

- 100 g spelt flour

- 200 g wheat flour

- 300 g water

- 15 g sourdough culture

Mix the ingredients in a bowl and cover it (I always put the bowl in a transparent pedal bin liner). Let it rest at room temperature during the night.

The next morning you can start making your two loafs.

Ingredients:

-  the poolish

- 300 g wheat flour

- 80 g water

- 11 g salt

- 3 g dry yeast

Mix the poolish with the flour and the water for only a minute, just until the flour has absorbed the water. Now cover the bowl and let it rest for half an hour. After this you can add the salt and the yeast. At this point you can start showing your kneading-talents: take your dough out of the bowl and knead it for about 10 minutes. For kneading my dough I bought a tile of Chinese black stone (60 x 40 cms) and placed it on my working surface. I don't use any flour while kneading and the dough doesn't stick to the stone during this process. It needs some practice (or actually a lot of practice!). On YouTube you can find some great instruction-videos about kneading: here is my favorite (the Bertinet-method).

After the dough has become a real nice, smooth dough, put it in the bowl again, cover it and put the bowl on a rack on the warming plate. Let it rest for about 40 minutes. Then take it out and do a stretch and fold (one fold actually means four: west over east, north over south, etc.). Ed and Marieke published a fantastic video about this technique. You can find it here.

The dough goes back in the bowl again for an half hour rest. And another stretch and fold. And another half hour rest.

Now comes the tricky part. Shaping the two loafs. Again I can direct you to an instruction video for this.The video is made by the people of King Arthur Flour; the second half of the instruction is about shaping a batard (our spelt loafs). By the way: when I am shaping my loafs, I do use a little flour to prevent the dough from sticking to my working surface.

Let your two loafs proof on a well floured towel for again half an hour. Then it is time to score them (watch the video) with a razor blade. Two slashes will do.

Now you can put your loafs in the roasting oven for about 25 to 30 minutes. I have placed another tile of Chinese black stone on the floor of the roasting oven; it is a perfect (and very cheap) baking stone. Put a rack with a small backing tray above it and fill this with hot water just after you put your loafs in. Because baking bread means creating steam in your oven! After 20 minutes rearrange the loafs: turn them and change their places, so they will brown evenly. When they are gold brown, transfer them to the baking oven, on a rack, half high. Let them get ready in about 10 minutes.