Batch No.719

Today was the day for batch No.719 of bread - the regular baking of which is now in its fourteenth year, with a slight slowing down now, perhaps to do with my taking less exercise than I used to.

Inspection of the archive however reveals a more substantial slowing down than I had realised. Even when I deal with the outlying 2011, during which I was clearly dabbling with small white batches. Perhaps more to do with eating out than exercise?

I remember now putting quite a lot of effort into trying to make white bread like I like it - but failing. I never did get to the bottom of it, although I now suspect mechanical kneading and steam assisted ovens may have something to do with it.

Then there is the question of batch size, now 3lbs 8oz of flour, rather more than where I started out. Statistics always is a work in progress!

But the reason for noticing this batch is that, for the first time for some time, I failed to stop the second rise in time, and the risen, overly bubbly bread, collapsed shortly after going into the hot oven. But it must have only been a partial collapse, because while the resultant loaves were marred by a bubble apiece, the one I tried this evening was fine. A false alarm. Snapped above a couple of hours out of the oven and taken with butter rather than cheese.

I might say that collapse was a bigger problem when I was using Wright's Alto flour than after I switched, on a whim, to their Royalty flour. I might also say that Alto flour was the result of a chance encounter on eBay at the start of lockdown. No great thinking there either. For all of which see reference 2.

The reason I failed to stop the second rise in the proper time was that, having taken rather a lot of the kedgeree advertised at reference 1, I fell asleep. I have no memory now of sitting down or anything - just that I was woken from my armchair upstairs by the phone downstairs, which had stopped by the time that I had woken up properly and remembered about the buns - as it were - which should have been in the oven. Not, in the event, that we had taken any wine with the kedgeree.

An armchair which, ten years or more ago, BH and I somehow got up the stairs. Part of a set from the people at reference 3, via Goslett's of Worcester Park. The people at reference 3 are still there and they are still selling our chosen model - named for an Italian city - which is good - but Goslett's appear to be no more. They only seem to live on in trade directories.

A rare bit of DIY may have been another factor, as in the course of attempting to trim the jasmine out front, I discovered that it had broken away from its wall. Which meant a full performance: extension leads, drills, hammers, wire cutters, screwdrivers, screw, plugs and so on. With one side of the resultant fix being snapped above. Still can't think what the length of white section came off, one of several stored in the garage, just in case they came in: maybe it will come back to me overnight. It was lucky that it slid in so easily, underneath one of the cross pieces of the trellis.

While down the back, the golden club (Orontium aquaticum) is still doing well, say three weeks after I noticed it at reference 4. Even if a fox has pushed it off-centre. A successful purchase with which I am well pleased.

Must give the duckweed another does of the magic white powder, the first dose not having quite done the job.

Water hawthorn OK further back, but not doing as well as I had hoped. Doesn't seem to be as vigorous here as down at Newbridge, on the Dart, near Holne, where we first came across it. It may have had a set back after starting a bit too early in the year.

Impressed the the Street View camera car found its way to the pond in question (@50.5221342, -3.8211315), apparently in October 2021, which I would have thought was about the time in question. But it looks here more like some weed - perhaps duckweed or silkweed - than water hawthorn to me.

PS: some time the following morning, it came to me that the length of white section came from one of the contraptions that used to hold up our net curtains. Spring loaded things which held themselves up against the sides of the window cavities.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/05/big-haddock.html. 

Reference 2: https://www.wrightsflour.co.uk/.

Reference 3: https://www.valebridgecraft.co.uk/. A link which works, but which seems to be very slow for some reason. At least it is tonight.

Reference 4: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/04/trolley-671.html.