BAGELS!!!

And finally...

I had a moment of madness yesterday and decided to have a go at making Bagels again. I've made them several times before but ALWAYS fail when, after boiling them, I place the wet dough onto the baking paper - they always stick and end up a bit of a disaster... NOT this time!

I made them following the recipe to the book (not my usual method, I'm a bit slap-dash) and ended up with a nice firm dough. Once I boiled them I put them on some very well greased baking PARCHMENT paper, this is a different creature to greaseproof paper and its superior texture meant that the bagels did not stick, success!

I also made some multi-seeded bagels as well as the plain ones. Suffice to say they are nearly all gone as once we'd all eaten one for breakfast, there is probably just enough for tomorrow.

Sadly, I have created an impossible situation. I don't buy bread, I make it. The only thing I buy is Bagels, this is all change as the children have declared Mum's by far the best thing ever and are now keen for me to make those also. It'll keep me busy I guess, as if I don't have enough bread to make in a week, I've just given myself a bit more. Oh well, I love making bread and I know that all they have in them is flour, water, yeast, and honey. Not an E number in site!

p.s. the roll on the right was a Bagel until B leant on it and squashed it flat, it was re-born and duly eaten for tea!

Sourdough

This week I have been mostly concentrating on making Sourdough. I actually began with the whole effort of making Sourdough a week ago. It has been a long drawn out process as it takes 36 hours for the ferment to begin as no yeast is added, the flour and water are mixed together and the natural yeasts in the air cause the fermentation. The dough has to be fed with more water and flour on day 3, which you can see below:

Once the mixture has been fed, the dough has to be split into some for the loaves and some kept back, which I used to make dried sourdough granules with - it can be re-activated at a later date!

Tomorrow, the sourdough will come out of the fridge (its only been in the fridge 2 days, the rest of the time it must be kept over 25 degrees to aid fermentation) and it will have more flour added to make the bread.

I will post more pictures when I have the finished product!

Lacy Creation

Finally I finished the little lacy number for my sisters friend and it turned out pretty well to be honest as I did it in a tearing hurry! The buttons really finished it off, they were little flowers and were perfect for the delicate little 12inch number. It has already gone off to the recipient, who is apparently very pleased with it, well her Mum is at least!

Bumble Bee

The Ugly Bug Ball was last week's theme for dress-up day, sporting a homemade creation the smallest went off to school looking very happy in her Bumble Bee outfit. Thankfully it wasn't too hot as she would have boiled!