Great British Bake Off: Cottage Loaf

Recently, and perhaps because I am now burdened with the millstone-like new year’s resolution to “update this blog regularly”, I have become the baking equivalent of a new person at work.

I arrive on my first day at the new office, feeling all positive and breezy (“Morning guys! Would you like a coffee? I’ll photocopy that enormous file for you! No, of course I don’t mind! Walking 2 miles in the rain to collect your bespoke £5 hot chocolate? Absolutely! I love walking!") because compared to the last shithole I worked at, this can't possibly be as bad!

Meanwhile, the existing, disenfranchised employees all roll their eyes and patronise me. They’ve been here before but are too polite to spoil it for me and of course they know that I'll soon realise for myself that the job is shit and all the bosses are bastards.

But here I am, the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed dough puncher, at the beginning of my breadmaking career! My mum, you see, is the disenfranchised current employee because she knows that it’s not worth the effort and she knows that you may as well just buy a loaf or use the breadmaker. It comes out much better, so just give up right now and admit defeat.

However, because she isn’t a massive bitch like I would be in her situation (“STOP FUCKING AROUND AND BUY A TIGER LOAF”, I say to my future daughter) she humours me and sits patiently, answering my idiotic questions and demands: "I need a damp tea towel! A clean one! Quickly! It’s time-sensitive!” and nurtures my new-found sense of enthusiasm for something new.

Interestingly enough, the highlight of this bread was the crust and that, I think, is a huge accolade for the crust community because usually crusts are treated with nothing but contempt. They’re repeatedly slagged off, cut off and blitzed into a void to make way for their much more highly respected brothers, the breadcrumbs.

The trick to having the best crust in the world is a simple one. Firstly, don’t be too penny-wise by brushing a thimble-full of milk over your dough prior to baking; instead, fork out for an egg. You might even have a little left to make a tablespoon-full of scrambled egg like I did!

Secondly, heat an empty roasting tray in the oven, before putting your bread in. As soon as you do come to put your bread in, fill the tray up with cold water and WATCH the steam rise. Close the oven door as soon as possible. These are both tips taken from the Great British Book of Baking but I dutifully employed them and they worked a treat.

I have written out these instructions for those of us who have access to a mixing machine and dough hook (thanks mum!). I would have written the by-hand instructions too but I’m just too lazy.

You will need…

675g strong white bread flour

1 ½ teaspoons sea salt

1 x 7g sachet easy-blend dried yeast

400ml water, at room temperature

1 egg, beaten, for brushing

1. Mix the flour, salt and yeast in your food mixer bowl. Make a well in the middle and pour in the water. Use the dough hook attachment to gradually work into a firm dough.

2. ‘Knead’ for a further 4 minutes in the bread mixer, on the lowest possible speed. The dough should be very smooth and workable.

3. Take the bowl (with the dough in) to a warmish place and cover with a damp tea towel. It needs to double in size, which takes about 1 ½ hours. However, mine didn’t double in this time at all. It barely even changed!

4. Punch out all the air from the dough (if there is any) and knead by hand for another minute. Chop off one third of the dough and shape both parts into balls. Place them onto a greased (with butter) baking tray.

5. Cover the tray with a damp tea towel and put in a warmish place for about 40 minutes, so they double in size again. Mine did double in size at this point, hurrah!

6. Preheat the oven to 230c. You can put your empty roasting tin into the oven at this point.

7. Uncover your dough and gently flatten each ball. Put the smaller one on top of the larger one and use your index and third (what is that one called?) fingers to poke down in the top, to join the layers together. Leave for another 10 minutes.

8. Brush with milk and score around the edge of each loaf, using a sharp knife. Quickly put the bread in the oven and fill up the roasting tin with cold water. Shut the oven door ASAP.

9. Bake for 15 minutes before reducing the temperature to 200c and bake for 20-25 minutes more. The loaf should sound hollow when tapped on the bottom. Cool your loaf on a wire rack. Hey presto! 

Look at that STRUCTURE!

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Paul Hollywood's Focaccia Bread

A close-up of the focaccia (disguising a lack of depth)

When I was growing up, I was a “nothing” and now I am fully grown up, I am still a “nothing” but just a bit more comfortable about it. By a “nothing”, I mean not an “anything”; I just didn’t fit into any group: popular, unpopular, LGBT, goth, sporty, geek (honestly!).

These days, I generally accept that I am not a part of any subculture. Instead, I know what I like and my friends all have something in common with what I like, even though they are all very different. 

However, back in the days of school, I was desperate to be a something and I tried many times to make myself into a something. This first happened when I tried to become a heavy metal fan. I mean, I did become a fan: I saw Metallica twice and bought loads of albums and t-shirts and I did genuinely enjoy it, for what it was.

It soon became apparent though, that I wasn’t as serious about metal as all the other metal fans. I just thought “I like it but this isn’t serious stuff, it’s just some music and they all look a bit silly getting so serious about it”. Anyway, I think they rumbled me and I was ousted from the community.

When I was about 16, I tried to become an “emo”. I’d heard about emos on the internet before and they seemed to be the new cool thing (all former emos are now hipsters so they’re always pretty cool). My friend knew some people in emo bands and so I tagged along with her to go and see them play in Leeds. Again, I thought it was all a bit silly but they did have loads of fun, so I bought a studded belt and some really tights jeans and started getting to know emos.

Before long, word got round that the king of the emos (Oli Sykes from Bring Me The Horizon) was having a party at his house. It was advertised on MySpace and I think you had to become “friends” with the “house party” to ensure that you would be admitted. The band we sort of knew in Leeds knew Oli and so we somehow managed to wangle an invite.

Everyone was to meet at Sheffield train station at a specified time. We would then all get on a bus together and travel to his house (we filled the whole top deck, a bunch of emos!).

And again, I didn’t really understand. I was desperate just to say “shall we switch back to comfy jeans now and stop pretending we like this music where all the lead singer does is scream really loudly?” I didn’t say this but I sort of hinted at it to various people “on the scene”. They each had the same sort of reaction: an eye roll, a bemused look. They pattered off, looking like a matchstick with a black olive on top…as if I was the one being strange.

Feeling lost and a bit dejected, I fatally decided to take a nap on one of the beds in a spare bedroom. It was about 3am and even though everyone else seemed to be having fun, talking about bands like Thursday, FFAF and probably Cancer Bats too, I had had enough.

Drifting off, I finally felt as if I’d found myself: all alone, lost in my head, well away from this noisy, alien world of emos and scenesters.

And then, it hit me.

A water bomb. Straight in my face, followed by another and another and loads of them bursting all over me. Water going into my eyes, my ears and all over my stupid too-small jeans.

When anything unexpected happens during sleep, it is always very confusing and shocking. Is it a war? Am I being kidnapped? Is this the end of the world? I shrieked and called out for help: “Help! Where am I? Mum! Dad!” only to see through my blurred vision (a combination of tiredness and water) a group of emos laughing at me and walking off sharing their emo glee. Fucking emos. I didn’t even think they were meant to laugh, wasn’t that the point??

I had no choice but to wake up. I couldn’t go home because there was still two hours before the first bus. I tried to pretend to have fun but I was desperate to leave. Being an emo wasn’t for me. They were all still so awake and having fun and copping off with people without any kind or embarrassment or anxiety. Anything was better than this and so, looking like a drenched Kevin Khachaturian, I set off alone to sit at the bus stop for a couple of hours.

And that was the turning point in my life. I decided that I didn’t want to be in a subculture any more. I just wanted to like the music I genuinely liked and that was it. I wanted to think what I thought was right and I didn’t want to have to buy into a way of life that I couldn’t take seriously.

(This isn’t strictly true; it wasn’t a turning point at all. Instead, I had years and years of insecurity and paranoia about being a “nothing” until I just kind of accepted it because there were no groups left for me to infiltrate. To be kind to myself though, I would like to use my artistic license to assign those aforementioned very mature and rational thoughts to the bus ride home from the disaster-party). 

I have failed to rise in any group; I am a lone social drifter depending only on myself for survival (ha, ha). The other day, I baked some bread that also failed to rise in any subculture. In fact, it failed to rise altogether.

This was Paul Hollywood’s focaccia bread, which was featured on the Great British Bake Off one year as a technical challenge. Many contestants cocked it up because they didn’t believe the recipe, which called for an inordinate amount of water to be added to the dough. They were all wrong of course. Focaccia dough is meant to be really, really annoying because it is so sloppy and sticky that more of it tends to end up on you than it does in the oven. I knew this would happen and so I was prepared for the nightmare with olive oil already poured out into a dish (to avoid getting dough all over the bottle).

Before cooking (obviously)

I got the recipe from the wonderful Kerry at Kerry Cooks and if you would like to see how it should turn out, I urge you to click on that link. I followed all the instructions but the only thing I can think of that may have caused the lack of rise was that my dough was proving in a cold room. I’m not sure if this is an issue or not but to be on the safe side, make sure your room is of normal room temperature plus.

Either way, the bread still tasted good. So good, in fact, that we polished it off all in one go. I don’t think I’ll ever bother again because it really is a faff. However, if you’re up for a new experiment, definitely give this a go and let me know how you get on.

You can kinda see how flat it is...tasty though!

Ingredients

250g strong white flour
1 tsp salt
1 (7g) sachet dried yeast
1 tbsp olive oil
200ml cold water
olive oil, for drizzling and kneeding and resting and getting dough off your hands
fine sea salt (I just used some stuff that was in a grinder, not sure what it was)
2 tablespoons chopped rosemary – if you buy this from the supermarket, you probably won’t use it all. Make sure you take off all the other sprigs and put them in a little Tupperware. Pop this in the freezer and you will have fresh herbs on demand the next time you need them!

1. Flour, olive oil, salt and yeast into a large bowl. Kerry suggests keeping the salt and yeast at opposite sides of the bowl because the salt can kill the yeast. Good tip.

2. Add ¾ of the water and stir. Gradually add the rest of the water (yes, all of it).

3. Cover your hands in olive oil and begin the process of kneading the dough in the bowl. Put more oil on your hands if it gets too sticky (it will).

4. Now tip it out onto an oiled chopping board and knead for another 5 minutes (horrific). Plonk it all back into an oiled bowl. Leave to prove for 1 hour. It should double in size (mine didn’t).

5. Now put it into a lined tin and push the dough to the corners. Plonk your fingers in to give it an appearance akin to cellulite and cover with a tea towel. Leave to prove for another hour.

6. Preheat your oven to conv 220 / fan 200. Sprinkle dough with sea salt, speckle with rosemary and drizzle a couple of tablespoons of oil over the top (I may have used too much…I love oil).

7. It is done when golden brown. Maybe around 30 minutes…I can’t really remember!

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