So here is my first try in making bread after a decade or so. I got the recipe for a loaf of plain white bread from 'The New Zealand Bread Book' by Simon and Alison Holst. Everything but the cooking temperature worked. Which means that at the end, it wasn't technically a success. But I think Im pretty sure how to change things next time. Near the cooking phase the recipe says to bake at 200 C for 30 mins. In my oven, the bread got to 7 mins when I peeked in and saw this (see below). I pulled it out, it looked pretty good aside from the obviously burnt top. But I figured I'd cut the top off. I tapped it and it sounded hollow 'ish as its supposed to be, but when it cooled I tipped it out upside down onto the counter and the bottom immediately sank down. I cut into it and the top half was decided baked and the bottom still thoroughly dough like.
Grrrrr. Lets just say, my husband was jumping behind the couch to avoid the debris from my temper resulting from this. Note to self, don't take anger out on husband, instead send angry letter to highschool science teacher demanding why she didn't teach bread making in class...
NEXT TIME, I will follow the same ingredients, but I will lower my oven temp to say 150 and watch it the whole time. My Mum suggested that I heat the oven from the bottom elements instead of the top. I'll do that next time but I don't think I can do another massive bread failure.
Im loathe to see food go to waste so I cut out the cooked bread bits and tore out the dough bits by hand and put them in the homemade chicken soup I made :D
Chicken Soup!
My last post was about the amazing roast chicken I cooked by using the bundt cake tin. After that dinner we proceeded to scavenge the leftover chicken (and amazing roast potatoes!) for lunches two days in a row. But I did save the carcass which had lots of little bits of meat all over it. So the best way to eat all those little bits of meat is not by hand - cos thats tiring and sometimes the meat are in awkward places - by by slowcooker/crockpot. Our slow cooker has four settings - 10, 8, 6, 3 hours. The longer time period Im betting means the lower the temperature. I picked the 6 hour setting and dumped the carcass in the pot, poured in 4 cups of chicken broth, added 4 chopped spring onions and chopped roughly 4 thin but long carrots and put in a tablespoon of dried parsley flakes and half a can of corn (drained). An hour before serving I added a splosh (its a measurement alright!) of half n half milk and handful of dried spaghetti by breaking off the ends in 2 inch portions. DON'T put in instant noodles - thats gross! Instant noodles have all sorts of weird ingredients in them, plus theyre fried and have tons of oil in them. Half an hour before serving I turned off the slow cooker and using a slotted metal spoon I scooped up the carcass which magically been cleaned of all its meat and put into a separate container. If any meat remains its should be very very easy to just gently pull it off anyway for anyone else out there.
By the way - soup was AMAZING... Yum...
No comments:
Post a Comment