Public holiday

Well it's Melbourne Cup Day  here in um yes Melbourne and it is a national public holiday. Now as I did not choose in dressing up in a lovely frock, buying a $500 hat, walking in 5 inch heels that will get bogged down in the mud at the race course, waiting 45 minutes for a quick nip in the toilet and pay $10 for a glass of champagne, I chose to bake!

I've been on a bit of a mission now to find a decent Rye Bread recipe and my first attempt last week resulted in something that may have come from a volcanic erruption - pretty hard! The taste was ok, however I thought going with a full rye flour recipe may be a little extreme and have comprimised in searching for a recipe that used both rye and white flour...and I found one! The writer of the recipe said "after eating this bread I will never buy supermarket bread again" and I concur! I was a little naughty and didn't wait for the bread to cool down, I just got right into it and it is a very light bread that won't lag you and easy to digest. What is also a plus with this recipe is that you don't have to knead - that's right folks, no kneading! The recipe makes four small-medium sized loaves, however I made them into 'rough looking' rolls.

Because my other half doesn't eat anything to do with rye, I made a simple white bread that was far more successful than the one I baked last week. And even though I'm about to have a little hissy fit because I can hear him say quite loudly "I think Guillermo wants a fillet-o-fish"...(Guillermo is our kitten) and really, please don't use an innocent kitty cat so you can eat fillet-o-fish when there is fresh bread to eat!

Deli-style rye bread

Ingredients

1 cup rye flour
5 1/2 cups unbleached strong white flour
1 1/2 tbls salt
1 1/2 tbls yeast
3 cups lukewarm water

Method


1. Sift rye flour, white flour and salt into a large bowl.
2. Add the yeast and water and mix with a wooden spoon until combined.
3. Cover with a clean tea-towel and set aside, at room temperature, for two hours.
4. Sift flour over the surface and portion into four. Taking a portion at a time, generously flour bench and portion of bread. Mould it into the shape you desire (loaf or roll) and rest on a large piece of baking paper dusted with fine semolina. Once all portions are completed, cover with a tea-towl and rest for 40 minutes.
5. Preheat oven and pizza stone to 220 degrees. I added a tray of water at the bottom and just to add more 'professionalism' I sprayed the oven with water.
6. Bake bread for 20-30 minutes and cool.

The First Time

Well I have to say quite proudly (and with a touch of embarrassment), I finally worked out how to start a blog!

I do not have any recent photos of things I have made (now I've just added another task to my to-do list!) so I have scoured through photo's that I have saved of projects over the years just to share something small for the first time. This was a wedding cake I made for a dear friend I use to work with many years ago. Even though I professed to her I was not confident in baking a wedding cake as I had NEVER tried...she professed back that I was "just going to have to do it"! The wedding cake was a traditional fruit cake (for the hubby) and the cupcakes were a mixture of chocolate and vanilla (for the youngies!)...Please do disregard all those bumbs...they're a result of a first timer!

This is another picture I found and by goodness it's old! It is a hazelnut torte, filled with chocolate and white chocolate cream, covered with white chocolate cream and decorated with white chocolate leaves...

Oh and how's this for creativity - forget about writing on the cake...make chocolate letters! Trust me - it's quicker to write on the cake!