It's always possible to learn something new. Sometimes you can work it out for yourself (the answer to a vexing problem with someone's sanitary plumbing came to me in the shower yesterday, after I was cleaning off the Orrid Mess I'd got into while trying to fix their loo... I refrained, however, from dashing naked down the road with cries of "Eureka!" -this is a respectable suburb, you know) -sometimes it comes with a chance reading of something or other.Thus, thirty years after I'd started making bread on a regular basis, I stumbled upon two new (to me) ideas.
- Putting the risen loaf into a really hot oven gives it chance to rise even more before the crust hardens and stops it
- Liberally coating it with flour (I use rice flour for the purpose) help keep the crust soft, as does wrapping it in a tea towel as soon as it comes out of the tin
The loaf in the picture there is called a Musket Loaf, by the way, although it has other names. (I am capitalising, as I think good bread deserves proper nouns.) Herberts Bakery, my fave Bristol bakery, calls them Concertina Loaves. And apparently, Oop North they are called Lodger Loaves. This is, or so the story goes, because they were favoured by niggardly landlords and landladies, who could count the corrugations and immediately tell if the lodger had been helping themself.
Although I would not describe myself as niggardly, I used to be annoyed when one of my young flatmates used to help herself to my bread (and all my other stuff, for that matter) because she was such a poor cutter of slices; so I would take the bread out of the bread bin and find that the active end of the loaf (for want of a better term) was jagged, and lying at a jaunty angle with respect to the rest of it, making it a real pig to cut a slice for the toaster. This can cast a shadow over your breakfast, as I need hardly say.
Bread slicing. An essential skill. Perhaps it should be taught at school, or something.
when we were growing up we always had a cottage loaf on Saturdays. I learnt the art of slicing bread on those cottage loaves as there were 6 of us and it was so good. We tried to get as many slices out of it as possible. I appreciate staightly (!) cut bread.
ReplyDeleteAs well as unblocking toilets any bread slicing is left to me. Unless it's baguette, then anyone can break a piece off.
Funnily enough this morning I was thinking there wasn't a bread picture in your top ten...
My problem was roots growing into the drain - we would have had the best fed weeds in the area!
I was thinking as I wrote the post that there are some sorts of bread where cutting seems inappropriate, and tearing lumps off is the thing to do. Like baguettes, indeed. Makes me feel v wild and bohemian.
ReplyDeleteI once baled the inspection hole out with a bucket, after the sewer blocked up. Threw it all into a corner of the garden. Got a HUGE crop of tomatoes, though as it was late in the season they didn't mature, so made lots of green tomato chutney. It was lovely, but some people lost interest in eating it when they learned its provenance.
I cut bread very badly. Most people mock me for it but a fellow left-hander tells me it's because I'm left handed and using a right-handed bread knife. He goes on to explain that right handed bread knives are ground to counteract the natural bias in cutting direction. As a left hander using a right handed knife, I simply emphasise the bias. Of course, he could be talking rubbish and I might just be a bad bread slicer.
ReplyDeleteI just examined my bread knife - Lillput could be right...
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ReplyDeleteI am Miss Minimal Domestic Propriety but I did bake 50 loaves of bread on Thursday for a charity food org. Not my normal sort of activity. Slicing? They an do that themselves. lol ~Mary
ReplyDeleteJim's left-handed and cuts very well but at a slightly different angle from the one that I use...
ReplyDeleteThis currently doesn't matter as I'm experimenting with wholemeal spelt and he's still eating wheat.
And its interesting the thought about the hot oven - as the spelt recipe specifies that it should be baked hot and then turned down... but why would you want a soft crust? Crusty crusts are my delight!!
This is obviously an area to look further into, Liz. I am left handed, but use a sushi knife to slice my bread. It's ambidextrous (or ambisinistrous, to counter the prevailing dextral orthodoxy). I think one of my knives is supposed to be a bread knife, but it's useless.
ReplyDeleteHow on earth did you cook 50 loaves, FrankandMary? Do you have a huge oven, or did it take you all day? -actually, it must have been a pretty big mixing bowl too.
I quite like a soft crust now and then, Caroline; and Katie abhors crusts, so eating them at all for her is a matter of delicate negotiation and threat.
I've just remembered that one of my brothers used to refuse to eat all the crusts - maybe that was a reaction to my other brother fighting with me for the crust! (I lost a lose tooth that way once...) :-)
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