Domesticity and music

[ailbhe]

We ate scrambled eggs on toast for lunch, so I have to bake this evening. I'm still using Janice's recipe, though it seems to be evolving into a whiter loaf.

I'm wondering what to do for dessert on Wednesday. Possibly Saffranspankaka. I'm open to suggestions, of course :)

Musicwise, today I asked Rob to rip our Garbage and Alanis Morissette CDs. Goodness knows why, but at one point that was what I wanted to listen to.




Janice's Bread

Very Plain Yummy Brown Bread
 - with thanks to Janice Wright, who got it from somewhere else.

	Preparation time: 20 minutes, 2 hours wait
			  15 minutes, 30 minutes wait
	Cooking time:	  30 - 40 minutes
	Serves:	makes two smallish loaves

Ingredients

	Porridge oats
	Brown flour
	White flour
	15ml (1 tablespoon) yeast
	5 ml (1 teaspoon) sugar
	1 pint (about half a litre) warm water (bodyheat)
	0.5 tsp salt, if you like. I never bother.

Method

  1) Dissolve the sugar in the water. Add the yeast, and wait for it 
     to do something interesting.

  2) Pour porridge into a bowl. 
     My bowl is round, roughly 8 inches across at the bottom, and I 
     pour about half an inch deep. Ish. This translates to roughly 
     20 centimetres across by 1 deep.

  3) If the yeast has gone all frothy on top and looks interestingly 
     alive, pour it onto the oats and stir. Otherwise, stir the yeast
     gently and wait a little until it does go interesting, then add 
     it.

  4) Stir brown flour into the mix until it's lost most of its 
     stickiness (think "slightly warm plasticine"). This is a good
     time to add the salt.

  5) Leave it to stand, under a warm, damp, clean teatowel, for 
     A While. Don't leave it overnight, but you have time to walk to
     a nearby cinema and see a 90-minute film. It's been long enough 
     when it gets about double in size and looks really, really spongy.

  6) Into the now very spongy mixture, add white flour. When you can't 
     stir any more in with a spoon, turn the mix onto a floured surface 
     and knead more in, until the dough isn't sticky any more. It needs
     about 5-10 minutes of kneading, really.

  7) Shape into two loaves and put into greased loaf tins, or something.

  8) Leave in a warm place for another half-hour or so.

  8) Bake in a mediumish oven for about half an hour.
     No, seriously. When it's done, it'll look done, and you can stick
     a knife in it and it'll come out clean. If you're really worried, 
     tap on the bottom of the loaf. If it sounds hollow, it's done.
     If the oven is too hot, the crust will be rock-hard, but the 
     middle should be fine. It was when I did it.