Double Double Bs -- Bertinet's Basic Bread class in Bath

Recently, the D Goddess and her kitchen companion left their humble kitchen behind for a skip-hop away to England. Long summer days and too many pints were wonderful, and as a treat, the bread master's learning kitchen was right there in ol' Blighty (ol' Blighty happened to turn out fabulous sunshine days on our holiday).

So to Bath it was, for a Basic Bread-Making Class with Richard Bertinet himself. The French man sure was way funnier, taller and audibly louder than his DVD appearance belied.

Learning little tips (like keeping apart the yeast and salt when it is first added to the flour, and being daring with more water than the recipe calls for), watching the master and his apprentices at work saving our sometimes dismal dough, getting Nutrition101 lectures from Bertinet himself (not chewing food makes you fat, he intones), sipping crab bisque and sauvignon blanc, and finally sitting down to a self-made lunch of fougasse, focaccia, pecorino and herb bread sticks alongside crisp greens and salty cheeses with the rest of the recent bread-graduates made for a wonderful day out. Highly-recommended for a lively experience, even if you're a first-timer who would simply love to re-live play-doh days.

After a hard-working day of finger-cramping dough-throwing, soak up the rest of a long summer evening at the town's Thermae Spa - something the D Goddess begrudged us for because with a Double B class in mind, she forgot her own D-cup bikini required for the spa.

Fill and spill

There's nothing like rustic country loaves a la Pain Campagne that would fill up any baker's shelves prettily. And while the crust and crumb there enjoy the bread connoisseur's appreciation, there's nothing like a tasty ingredient-filled bread like this mozarella and rosemary-filler Stromboli (right) that satisfies everyone's taste buds rather than just the bread snob's.

Supposedly a traditional Italian bread that is named after the eruptive volcano of the region, the idea is that the melted mozarella will ooze and fill in those airy gaps between to offer up mouthful after mouthful of delightful bite ... and that it did.

The perfect setting for this is a flavourful big bowl of rough-cut, stock-rich vegetable soup, matched with its savoury-rich equivalent in this bread, on a gingham-set table, eaten in approaching autumn with a blood-deep glass of robust barolo. That Tuscan dream remains with the D Goddess. For now, the tropical table will have to suffice while we bite into the stromboli and let our tastebuds stimulate the imagination of that perpetually faraway Italian sojourn...

The learning kitchen

Some things just throw up the belief in your own skills and ability - the simple act of making bread is one. Same weight, same flour, some timings ... with different results.

This was what happened when the D Goddess thought to inspire a friend, by getting into the kneading and dough-throwing on another kitchen table one Saturday afternoon.

The idea was to go for a throwback, ever-popular, practically fail-proof loaf like the Gruyuere and Cumin Cheese Bread that should prove a winner and be a confidence booster, plus the basic but ever-hard to master Baguette.

But in a new kitchen, with different oven behaviours, different temperature and humidity settings, what popped out of the oven was somewhat different. The baguettes were nicely-shaped, albeit rock-hard, the Cheese and Cumin bread suffered from a forgotten dose of Cumin (but tasted well enough) ... and it was a lesson in humility for all.

Dough reigns. Respect it. :D

The new and the old

This is a first attempt from a new anniversary-gift book, Bread (left). Dough and Crust continue to offer up many challenges, surprises and yummy breads, but sometimes, the new and un-tested calls out loud.


This is an old recipe, Victorian Milk Bread (right), that probably came the closest to everyday sliced bread back then.

This first shot following a new master, was a delight. Soft, fluffy-light and almost creamy, why ever succumb to commercially-conditioned doughs again?

Say Cheese!

Revisits are great things. Especially with people, places and things you know you already like, the chance of a disappointment is reduced, thereby cheaply, minimising the many uncertainties in life.

It was the case with, this - an intended Gruyuere and Cumin bread. But as with last-minute decisions and late-night jaunts across to the late-opening supermarket, Gruyuere doesn't always wait for the hobbyist baker.

The result is this slightly stickier and heavier Cheddar and Herbs de Provence loaf, that was as wonderfully fragrant the morning-after. Sometimes, new visitors make for great surprises.

The Spice girls return...

Inspired by a conversation on what pastries, food and drink fads had hit town before, on what had come, gone and are sometimes, sadly missed, we hit upon the idea of cinnamon swirls.

Yes, those snails of sweetness that were pre-Rotiboy (one of the sadly missed, by the way), pre-donuts. They're not the flat maraschino-topped ones you find in Delifrance. You have to recall the cinnamon trays of almost-square, tall buns that are spongy, airy, chewy, but not crusty ... that was the aim here.

Sweet buns!

It's been too long since the D Goddess' minion has set to work to send forth word of her work done in the kitchen. So here it is...

About a month ago, after a new razor and lame had been made after a ramble to Pangkor, the Doughmestic queen embarked on creating these sweet white buns with these practice swish slashes across the top.

Truth be told, the cuts look rather garish. But aesthetics aside, the fluffy buns were great for tearing and over-stuffing in these still-rainy March and April days.

Everyday Pain!

While we are on a celebration of the simple, surely the attempt at an everyday bread, Pain de Mie, was in order.

What Bertinet had termed the closest you get to sliced white bread in France turned out to be a breakfast pleasure and a smooth sailing party to make.

Best served slightly warmed and spooned over with gooey, full-fat hazelnut chocolate spread ... this makes weekday mornings worth getting up for.

Back to baguettes

After an ambitious stab at ferment, sourdough and the like, a little reflection was in order ... especially when it looked like there was a basic somewhere that was yearning to be perfected.

So it was a head-back to basic, white baguettes.

This time round, the mini loaves were more precisely formed, the baguette rolls (if you can call them that, since Bertinet has actually reported that the technical definition of a baguette in France calls for exactly seven top slits and probably proportion correct to the last millimetre) were generous in sizing but prettily perfect for a crusty morning bread with robust black coffee.

The first of the second book

D Goddess' bread-making endeavours had made considerable progress after many sessions of kneading, folding and general aiding in the collapse of a flimsy Ikea table; and so was attempted the eventual venture into Bertinet's second book, CRUST, which teaches the incorporation of a slow process of six-hour to overnight ferment.

The first attempt is this approximately nine-hour-in-the-making Somerset Cider Bread, which was fat at first (left above), and only bigger afterwards.

A little too-early slashing meant the partial collapse of the bread, so two loaves were nicely risen and chewy, the other two were perfect for swan-hurling at the Botanic Gardens (which we never did).

That sino-italian link

Seems like the Sino-Italian exchange continues to this day long after our beloved ta mee became linguini and mee pok morphed into fettuccini.

In honour of gastronomical collaborations, our initial idea of cheese-and-wine CNY, which evolved into a teochew muay supper concept (both of which did not materialise), became a local fare punctuated with European flavours affair.

OK, OK ... it was ciabatta and curry.

The result was chewy and light ciabattas enlisted into the service of spicy chicken curry as a gravy scooper and spice-negator. It was the perfect pre and post blackjack dish.

the italian job

An almost picture-perfect match of Bertinet's own picture in his book, this Rock Salt and Rosemary Foccacia was a success in the stomach stakes too.

Not as olive oil-laden as many I've tasted, the symmetry of this bread's shape is as pleasing as the salty-savoury balance of taste that lingers long after slices have gone.

getting fat

Memory fails me, but this could be the first '08 bread.

Sweet, soft and just on the pudgy-cuddly side, this is the springy Pain Viennoise, perfect for hand-tearing and sharing on a Saturday afternoon with fine-leafed tea.

Pale and skinny at the resting stage (below), it emerges bravely browned and bulgy quickly.

Just as quickly, this is easily wiped off the tray. Only fears of our own expanding girth stopped the perfect partnering of pain viennoise with gooey, sticky nutella for a proletarian version
of pain chocolat.

spice really is nice

One of the most heady scents, in equal measures of aversion and attraction, belongs to cheese. What more when it is pungent gruyere being baked to brown perfection.

The second attempt by the D goddess at the much-appreciated Gruyere and Cumin Bread was an olfactory attack.

But out of the oven, it was a proud moment, like a parent seeing a suspiciously errant child become a worthy character.

Punchy in flavour, pricelessly chewy in texture, photogenic in the morning light ... those uncertain, erratic experiments with dough had reached a next level.

Consistency is all.

go forth and bear fruit III

On a Christmas past, before the D goddess found her calling from bread and Bertinett, explorations in the kitchen had begun.

The plan was to make small, meaningful gifts for friends that would hopefully capture the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future. So the season's hues of cranberry-red and fresh pistachio-green were enlisted to make crisp slices of biscotti. But perhaps small is relative and our biscottis were more biscuits, but they were just as happily devoured by hungry friends and selves.

And then the bread man cometh and in his book, a cranberry and walnut loaf looked most longingly to be sifted, shaped and summoned into bread being. Ah! That light bulb went up bright on the most brilliant idea on how to use up those niggling cranberries from a season past (well, it was just under a month really).

Amidst the digging up of ingredients, the D goddess forgot the whisper of the walnut and popped the pistachios into the dough instead.

The result is this bread version of our earlier biscotti.

go forth and bear fruit II

It was, as mentioned in the earlier post, a whirlwind of bread-making on late nights.

The raisin and hazelnut emerges fresh from the oven.

Just as quickly, it was half gone in 12 hours' time.

go forth and bear fruit I

The D goddess is on a kitchen rampage.

Faster than you can 'kitchenaid', there birthed on the wooden board and cooling rack a variety of fruits that lent their sweet and tart flavours to humble flour and water.

Stomach acids have short memories and the baking was fast and furious, so Dough-A-Deer didn't know which came first: the-lemon-rolls-that-could-be-baguettes, the Van-Houten-would've-been-proud fruit&nut raisin and hazelnut loaf or the season-inspired cranberry and pistachio bread.

But, here they are .... let the lemon begin....

the missing loaf

After a not-very-encouraging first bake of the earlier, misshapen Epi (that dreamed of growing up to be a proper baguette), the D goddess was surprisingly undeterred in the endeavours of dough-slamming.

And so was born a new bread -- the sweet loaf of orange and mint bread that left one citrus fruit naked and some stomachs sated.

Sadly, the much-more-deserving bread was gobbled up before it was pictured. Such are intentions (like this one to blog) after the event has happened (we baked, we burped and we never saw the back of that road).

Next time, we will be sure to let no yeast and flour be left without a picture, a crumb of its former life...

Let bread begin

It all began with one of those conversations, about nothing, about something, about something else seemingly unimportant ... but there it had begun: on second careers.

I dreamt of being a baker, smells wafting in the early morning chill to waking villagers.

But in the end, I wasn't the one who bought Richard Betinet's DOUGH and CRUST. It was her self-gifted Christmas '07 treats.

And so began our journey into bread and baking...

The first was a misshapen looking little bread called 'epi'. Each leaf was meant to be easily broken off as you laid it on a long country table by diners to dip into their hearty stews and soups. This is daily bread, to be shared. But here it is, mini and tentative....

Still, the journey's begun...