pmccool's blog

As part of my preparation to move from South Africa back to the United States, I dried my sourdough starter using two different techniques.  The first was to simply smear a thin layer of batter-consistency starter across some parchment paper and allow it to dry at room temperature.  The second was to mix flour into some starter until it was reduced to crumbs.  I found that a mezzalune was very helpful in the latter stages of incorporating the flour by allowing me to chop the progressively stiffening starter into smaller and smaller pieces while blending in more flour.

The finished product, two bags of crumbed starter and three bags of flaked starter:

That gives me one packet per suitcase.  Each will be appropriately labeled.  Hopefully, at least one and maybe all will arrive home with me. 

I'm interested to start rehydrating a bit of each to see which one comes back to fighting trim more quickly.  I'll post follow-ups when I can.

Paul

Because of some scheduled maintenance on my car, I had to work from home one day a week or two ago.  That afforded me an opportunity to accomplish a couple of additional objectives: first, clear out some of the pantry contents in preparation for my pending move and second, make some bread.  As it turned out, that also became my last bake in South Africa.

In terms of the pantry, there was just enough rye flour to make a small rye sour, a couple of kilos of crushed rye, sunflower seeds, flax seeds, sesame seeds, whole wheat flour and bread flour.  While I couldn’t use up everything in a single bake, I was able to put together a formula that utilized all of those ingredients to some extent.  I thought that I would aim for something around 70% hydration, on the assumption that the resulting dough would be somewhat slack but still have enough body to carry the load of the crushed rye and seeds.  After some measuring and calculating, the draft formula looked like this:

Rye Sour

42g white starter (mine was roughly 60% hydration and there’s nothing magical about using exactly 42g)

140g whole rye flour

140g water

Soaker

200g crushed rye (cracked rye or rye chops would work just as well)

50g sunflower seeds

50g flax seeds

50g sesame seeds

350g boiling water

Final Dough

All of the rye sour

All of the soaker

450g water

150g whole wheat flour

850g bread flour

13g yeast

20g salt

The rye sour ingredients were thoroughly mixed the evening before baking day and covered while fermenting at room temperature (in the upper 60’s F).    The next morning, the sour was noticeably puffy, though nowhere near doubled.  When I poured in the water for the final dough, the sour detached from the bottom of the bowl and floated to the top.

The soaker ingredients were mixed the morning of baking day, covered, and allowed to cool until they were just warm to the touch.

The final dough was assembled and baked as follows:

1. The rye sour, the soaker, and the water were combined and thoroughly mixed.
2. The remaining flours, yeast and salt were added to the sour/soaker/water mixture and mixed until thoroughly combined.  The dough was sludgy and stiff, more like a rye dough than a wheaten dough.
3. The resulting dough was quite a bit stiffer than I wanted, so I began adding water and mixing and kneading to incorporate the water.  Some 25 minutes and probably another 50g of water later, I called it good enough.  My initial thought had been to arrive at a dough that was slack enough to handle with stretch and folds.  That may not be a realistic goal, given the quantity of crushed rye and seeds.  This dough required a lot of muscle to perform the usual push/turn/fold method of kneading.
4. The dough was placed in a greased bowl, covered, and allowed to ferment until doubled in volume. 
5. After gently degassing the dough, I shaped it into two batards.  Boules would probably have worked just as well but my gear, including bannetons, was somewhere between Johannesburg and Kansas City.  Since I had to improvise, I placed the shaped loaves on a parchment lined baking sheet and covered them, allowing them to ferment until they were nearly doubled in size.  It was about that time that the dealership let me know that the car was ready.  Plan B, then, accompanied by much muttering.  I placed the loaves in the refrigerator and hoped that they wouldn’t over-proof before I got back.
6. A little more than an hour had elapsed by the time I got back to the house.  The loaves looked a bit wobbly.  More muttering.  I preheated the oven (and steam pan) to 230C/450F which proceeded as it usually did, which is to say sl-o-o-o-o-wly.  Taking the loaves out of the refrigerator, I tried to slash them with the sharpest of the dull knives that were available to me, which caused a visible settling of the loaves and not much of a cut.  Quickly dumping some boiling water into the steam plan, I then manuevered the sheet pan with the loaves into the oven as gently as possible and left them to themselves for about 45 minutes.  During that time they regained about half of the volume they lost when slashed.
7. When the loaves were done to the eye and the ear (the instant read thermometer was in the same crate as the bannetons and knives, remember), they were removed from the oven and allowed to cool on a wire rack, covered with a towel.

Dough at beginning of bulk ferment:

Dough at end of bulk ferment:

Finished loaves:

On the plus side, this is a very good bread, particularly with regard to flavour.  Lots of earthy notes from the rye while the sunflower seeds provide a more mellow richness.  The flax and sesame seeds each contribute to the crunch factor.  Surprisingly, this is not a tough bread.  Neither is it dry.  It is, however, very substantial, requiring real chewing.  Given the lengthy kneading, the crumb is very even, composed of small cells.  In spite of the high percentage of bread flour, it reminds me more of a vollkornbrot.  It definitely feels like a vollkornbrot in the stomach; thin slices are just fine, thank you.  I can report that it plays very nicely with ham and cheese but tends to overwhelm smoked chicken breast.

There are a number of things to address if I am able to try this again once I’m back in the States.  The first is to bump up the hydration.  Pushing it to 85% may not be too much.  That might loosen the dough enough to permit use of the stretch and fold technique and gain a more open crumb.  Then again, it may be too soft to carry the soaker successfully.  Maybe, just maybe, a bit of sweetener would bring some of the grainy flavours forward; perhaps a drizzle of honey or molasses, or a combination of the two.  Not tolerating any interruptions between final fermentation and baking will be important, too.  If the ambient temperatures are in the 70’s F or higher, going entirely sourdough with no commercial yeast is also an option.  Depending on moisture content, some alterations to the baking profile may also be required.  For instance, a wetter dough with some sweetener in it might want the high initial temperature for the first 15 minutes or so to drive oven spring, which would then have to be dialled back to prevent the crust from burning before the interior is thoroughly baked.  Hmm, I’m going to have to reacquaint myself with U.S. flours.  That may push things in unexpected directions, too.

Considering that the whole thing was jerry-rigged from start to finish, I’m reasonably happy with the outcome.  Probably the biggest frustration is that it over-proofed during the final fermentation.  Even with that happening, the bread is not crumbly at the top and dense at the bottom.  If I can source the ingredients (I’ve not had much luck locating rye chops or crushed/cracked rye in stores back home), I’ll definitely take another run or three at this to see whether I can come up with something that I can produce reliably.  If any of you want to try some variations on the theme, let me know how things go, please.

Today was a fun day, featuring a thoroughly informal and just as thoroughly entertaining class on how to make bread.  Eight friends and acquaintances received a lesson on making a honey whole-wheat bread.  Two of them thought that they would just observe but we had them up to their elbows in flour along with the rest of the group in no time flat. 

It was raucous and messy and fast-paced.  Lots of questions (good ones!) and lots of interest.  At the end, we helped Joan clean up her kitchen and get things put back to rights.  Afterward, everyone took their shaped and panned dough home for the final rise and baking.  I've already seen a couple of FB posts.

The format was simple.  Everyone brought their own utensils and I supplied the ingredients since I need to clean out the pantry anyway.  I had a sheet with the recipe and instructions printed up for each student, along with another tip sheet that, among other things, referenced TFL.  I had everyone weighing and measuring after a minimal intro, then used the autolyze time to go into a bit more detail and field questions.  There was one bobble, mine, while assembling the final dough, in that I forgot to have them put the butter in the dough.  So much for practicing mise en place!  Anyway, it was a good opportunity to demonstrate that just about any mistake is recoverable and that adjustments are inevitable even without mistakes.

We used the time for the bulk ferment to munch on a loaf of Sweet Vanilla Challah that I had brought along for that purpose, along with the demo loaf of the honey whole-wheat that I had prepared in advance.  Bonus discovery of the day: challah smeared with Nutella and coconut butter is way more than just good.  Next time you're in Florida, pick up a jar of the coconut butter.  Just sayin'.

Some pictures:

I'm pretty sure that at least one or two will use this as a launch pad for further baking on their own.  Even if it doesn't become something that they choose to do consistently, they at least have the knowledge that they can make bread on their own.  And that it can be a lot of fun.  That's a good thing to have.

Paul

A few weeks ago, I blogged about a bake that was destined for dinner with friends.  I had asked what they would like us to bring and the response was "Something that would go well with snoek pate."  Since I didn't have a clue about what Marthinus put into his snoek pate, other than that snoek is a fish, that left me with (in positive terms) a lot of freedom of choice.  I wound up choosing two breads: a sourdough in the pain de compagne vein and Reinhart's pain a l'ancienne.

Before I go further, I should provide some context.  Marthinus had an 18-year run as chef/owner of one of Pretoria's top restaurants.  Although he has changed businesses, he remains passionate about food and cooking.  He is still very selective about the ingredients he uses and very creative with how he puts them together for the finished dish.  When presented with something, he wants to know what went into it and what process or processes were used.  And he is not bashful about sharing his opinions.  For Marthinus, flavor matters.  A lot.

With that in mind, I was both relieved and pleased to see Marthinus enjoy both breads.  He was especially taken with the flavor of the pain a l'ancienne.  So much so, in fact, that this chef and self-avowed non-baker has begun experimenting with pain a l'ancienne at home.  He's already made it twice, with neither effort quite reaching the goal that he wanted to achieve.  One was, from his description, over-fermented.  The other was probably under-hydrated. 

In spite of not hitting a home run with the first two attempts, Marthinus is soldiering on because the flavor of those breads was still captivating.  As he put it, "There isn't a bakery around here where you can get bread that tastes like this!"  Knowing Marthinus, he will have bread whose crust and crumb is as satisfying as its flavor in the not-too-distant future.  It might even be the final motivation to press ahead with a WFO that he had already been contemplating.

Seeing his interest in the bread's flavor has caused me to give some more thought to the importance of flavor.

We all bake for a variety of reasons.  Sometimes it is as fundamental as putting food on the table for our families.  Sometimes we bake because it satisfies an inner longing to master a craft and produce something that appeals to the senses.  Sometimes we bake because it is better to knead a batch of dough than it is to punch someone or something.  Sometimes we bake because it lets us take an active role in making foods that are wholesome and unadulterated.  Sometimes we bake to be reminded of a special place, or time, or person.  Sometimes we bake because we can produce something better than we can get at the store for less cost.

Whether our reasons for baking are utilitarian or esthetic, we all bake for flavor.  If bread tasted or smelled like cow flop, we wouldn't eat it. 

As you read through the posts here on TFL, you will see frequent mention of the flavor and fragrance of the breads that are being produced.  People get downright lyrical as they try to describe the flavor of the breads they make.  It isn't surprising.  Every bread sooner or later goes into our mouth.  And as we chew it, the initial visual impression that we had of it is supplanted by the flavors and aromas that permeate our mouth and our nose.  At that point, our attention has shifted away from whether it had a open crumb or a tight crumb, a dark crust or a light crust.  What we want is flavor; the kind of flavor that tells us "Yes!  This is the way that bread should taste!" 

Flavor is so important to us that we aren't content to simply savor the notes that come from the grain, the yeasts, the bacteria, or the enzymes that have all contributed to a specific bread's flavor.  Bread's flavor calls for other flavors, sweet and savory.  Depending on the bread, we may want the simple luxury of butter or a drizzle of olive oil or a scattering of salt.  Or maybe a PB&J is in order.  Or we might marry some good ham, Havarti cheese, and a grainy mustard with an earthy rye.  The possibilities are as infinitely variable as the people making the decisions and the ingredients they have to work with  Every one of those choices is driven by the desire for flavor.

Although I have used Marthinus, with his training and experience as a chef, as an example of someone who cares about flavor, each of us in our own fashion is also concerned about flavor.  Whether or not we consciously acknowledge it, every loaf of bread we bake is another step in the pursuit of flavor.  Some of us are adventuresome, others are cautious.  Some of us crave the new, others want familiar comforts.  Some want in-your-face flavors, others prefer to thoughtfully consider the more subtle flavors.  We each, though, want our bread to taste good. 

The next time you chew a piece of bread, think about what you are tasting.  And enjoy!

Paul

It was a busy baking weekend here in Pretoria.  My lease for the house is up at the end of September, which means I'll be in temporary quarters for the last two weeks of my stay here.  Since I don't know what I might have for kitchen facilities during that time, I'm trying to fit in the baking that I need/want to do while I can.

On Friday evening, I mixed the liquid levain that the Vermont Sourdough formula calls for, plus enough extra for sourdough pancakes on Saturday morning.  Never one to leave well enough alone, I also set up a soaker consisting of cracked rye at 10% on flour, with an equal amount of water, to include in the bread.  I need to use up what I can, right?  And I haven't been wrong yet about choosing which breads to grace with some cracked rye.

On Saturday morning, I assembled the final dough for the Vermont Sourdough and put it through its stretch and fold regimen.  A formula for this bread, posted by zolablue can be found here, with corrected metric weights here.  The day was a bit cool, with temperatures only getting up into the mid-60s, so both the bulk and final ferments were leisurely affairs.  It's a lovely dough to work with.  Initially, it's a bit sticky (probably accentuated by my use of the cracked rye soaker), but it transforms with each S&F into a dough that that is elastic and self-supporting.  The final proof after shaping was done on parchment on a baking sheet.  Scoring was a bit ugly (I miss my knives!) but one loaf still developed a respectable ear during baking.  The other loaf exhibited a small blow-out along the bottom edge, which would probably have been prevented if the scores had opened properly.  No pictures, I'm afraid, as the bread is already in the freezer.

After getting the sourdough to the bulk proof stage, I started a batch of Sweet Vanilla Challah.  I've blogged about it previously, so won't repeat myself here except to say that I really like this bread.  Much of my baking involves lean whole grain breads, so working with an enriched white bread is like driving a luxury sedan after driving a pickup.  Everything is so much smoother.  Again, no pictures since both loaves are in the freezer.  One will be gifted later this week and the other will be consumed at a bread class I'm conducting at a friend's house next Saturday.

After getting home from church this morning, I started a batch of the honey whole wheat bread that the class will be making next Saturday.  I wanted to give the formula a shake-down to ensure that everything worked the way I expected.  Good thing, too.  The flour was much thirstier than I expected, so hydration needs to go up.  I also wanted to show the class the effects of a couple of techniques.  Because of time constraints, we'll only use a 15-minute autolyze in class.  For this batch, I extended the autolyze to 60 minutes.  I also extended the kneading time to about 25 minutes.  All things considered, this bread should be more tender and less apt to crumble than the batch that I made a couple of weeks ago.  As the picture below shows, matching pan size to dough quantities properly results in a prettier loaf.

In considering what to do with some apples that might not be used otherwise, it occurred to me that someone had posted an apple variation to the Blueberry Cream Cheese Braid that Floyd initially posted, so I went looking.  For once, my memory concided with reality.  The apple filling formula is about two pages down from the end of Floyd's post.  So, I set the sponge, peeled the apples and cooked the filling, made up the final dough and set it to proof, then went to the stoep to read the Sunday paper.  Well, part of it anyway.  When I came back in to check the dough, I found that the dough had doubled so I mixed both the egg glaze and the cream cheese filling, then rolled out and assembled the two braids.  I am not a natural-born braider but I'm really pleased with these two attempts in spite of the obvious flaws.  Dunno yet how they'll taste but they make the eye happy.  Here they are:

And a closer view:

Odd.  I'm not seeing the images that I've linked to.  Ordinarily they pop into view immediately.  Maybe it's just my slow connection here.  Hopefully they will show up once the post is submitted.

 All in all, a very satisfying baking weekend.

Paul

Saturday, August 20, was a busy day in the kitchen.  And a bit more daunting than normal.  Friends had invited us to dinner that evening and asked if I would bring some bread.  When I asked what they would like, the answer was “something that would go well with snoek paté.”  Did I mention that Marthinius had previously been executive chef and partner in an up-scale restaurant?  And did I also mention that I’ve never had my baking critiqued by a chef whose training is in classic French cuisine?  Hence the daunting.

Well.  A challenge.  Bread to go with snoek paté.  Whatever that might turn out to be. 

I wound up choosing two breads: Reinhardt’s pain a l’ancienne and a pain de compagne.  Both French in origin or influence.  Neither one required complex techniques but each offered layers of flavour from levains or long ferments; one somewhat more ethereal and one more hearty.  (Hedging, don’t you know.)  And each being something that was started the previous evening with the final dough preparation (the pain de compagne) or shaping and baking (the pain a l’ancienne) on Saturday.  Because each was at different stages of readiness Saturday morning, it also gave me better opportunity to manage oven timing without a train wreck between two different breads that had to be baked at the exact same time.

And, since we were also invited to a braai (barbecue) on Sunday afternoon, I followed those with Portugese Sweet Bread using Mark Sinclair’s formula.

The breads, happily, proceeded without a hitch.  Just as happily, temperatures were starting to moderate; enough that the house temperature was in the low to mid-60s instead of the 50s.  I still spiked the final pain de compagne dough with about a half-teaspoon of yeast as insurance and used a make-shift proofer for the bulk ferment.

Handling the pain a l’ancienne dough is, except for temperature, not unlike handling taffy or melted mozzarella cheese.  It is so wet that it has very little internal support and wants to stick to everything.  Nevertheless, I was able to get it divided and “shaped” as per instructions.  One or two were rather raggedy in appearance, so they didn’t make the trip to dinner that evening.  Which is not to say that they weren’t eaten.  In spite of knowing how difficult it is to slash such wet dough, I made the attempt.  The slashes were not a thing of beauty but they did serve a purpose.  You can see in the photo that the greatest expansion occurred at the slash locations.  Rather than repeatedly opening the oven for steaming by spritzing, I relied on pouring boiling water into a preheated pan in the oven to generate steam.  The oven in this house only heats up to 230C, which is a bit less than I needed, so I relied on the convection setting to boost the, um, “effective” temperature.  While I would have liked to have a prettier bread, this gave me a baguette-like bread with great flavour but without the technical demands of producing a classic baguette.  I’ve tried but my present setup just doesn’t permit me to hit that target even if my technique is bang on, which it frequently is not.

The pain de compagne is more familiar to me and went very smoothly.  The only glitch was my being a bit impatient about getting it into the oven.  I could have waited another 20-30 minutes at those temperatures and avoided a couple of small blowouts.  Other than that, some very tasty bread.

The Portugese Sweet Bread is lovely stuff.  The dough is easy to handle and absolutely silky compared to the whole-grain lean breads that I usually make.  I have no complaints with the process or the finished bread.

Eventually it was time for dinner, the moment of truth.  Marthinius made the snoek paté with snoek that he had smoked at home.  I don’t know entirely what was in it (mayonnaise? minced celery? other?) but my wife, who is ordinarily not a lover of things involving fish, thought it was absolutely wonderful.  I concurred.  After asking me to describe each of the breads and then sampling each, Marthinius decided that he liked both (whew!) but preferred the pain a l’ancienne with the paté.  I think the complex play of flavours appealed to him.

There were two main courses.  One was a deboned haunch of springbok, larded with garlic cloves, lightly smoked, then wrapped with bacon and finished in a slow oven.  The other was chicken breasts stuffed with feta cheese and spinach.  Both were excellent.  They were accompanied by baby corn, roasted sweet potatoes, and a pilaf.  Dessert was a vinegar pudding, as it is called by the Afrikaners.  Those from a British background would probably call it a nutmeg pudding.  It was a thoroughly enjoyable meal and evening.

The weather on Sunday was absolutely gorgeous.  There was plenty of warm sun and a cool breeze.  With chicken, steak and boerwors on the braai, delicious side dishes, and lots of conversation, it made for a marvellous afternoon. 

We are definitely happy about moving back to the States soon but we will miss times like these with friends like these. 

Although there would be no way for you to know it, I have been baking.  It’s the blogging bit that has suffered in recent weeks.  This will be the first step in addressing the shortfall.

We are on the downhill run toward moving from South Africa back to the United States.  My wife will return in mid-September and I will follow in mid-October.  Two years looked like a long time when we first arrived.  In retrospect, it seems to have passed by very quickly.  We have seen and sampled much of South Africa, with a few forays into neighbouring countries, but there is much that remains on our list of things to see or do. 

Coincidentally, getting ready to leave means saying goodbye—quite often, as it turns out.  We have received a number of invitations to dinner with friends recently, with more to come.  Those often include a request: “Could Paul bring some bread?”  (Lest this seem one-sided, let the record show that my wife is frequently asked to bring a dessert, or “pudding” in the local idiom.)

On the weekend of August 13-14, baking had two objectives.  The first was a vollkornbrot for local friends, one originally from the Netherlands.  The second was a sandwich loaf and honey whole wheat bread, an old favourite, was selected. 

While it is possible to locate rye breads in the local markets, they tend to be more in the light-to-medium rye vein.  Good sandwich breads, yes, but not the hearty, earthy base that works so well for pickles, cheeses or cured meats. 

In looking through various formulae, I was at first drawn to Leader’s version in his Local Breads book.  Upon closer perusal, I realized that the formula had discrepancies in the quantities that I did not want to have to sort out.  Still, the extended bake at lower temperatures was attractive.  Further looking led me to a formula in another book.  I believe it was in the KAF 200th Anniversary cook book but cannot verify that because our household effects, including cook books, are somewhere between Pretoria and Kansas City.  In the baking equivalent of a shotgun wedding, I used the formula from one source with the baking instructions from another, after first ascertaining that the finished dough quantities and characteristics were (probably) close enough that disaster wasn’t lurking.  And the results were good, if I do say so myself, which I do.  More to the point, so did the recipients, which is the important thing.

In the accompanying photos, you can see that the bread achieved the brick-like profile that is de rigeur for vollkornbrot.  And that the crumb is suitably dense without being completely solid.  The flavour was entirely rye: earthy with a light tang from the sour.  The one thing that I had hoped for was a deeper coloration of both crust and crumb from the low and slow baking profile.  Apparently it has to go lower and slower to allow the Maillard reactions to produce a truly dark bread.

The honey whole wheat is one that I have made for years.  My primary purpose for mentioning it here is because of the finished bread’s size and shape.  Although it is written as a straight dough, I used a 30-minute autolyse to help soften the bran in the coarsely-ground whole wheat flour that I had on hand.  This was baked, as suggested and as I have done previously, in a 9x5 loaf pan.  The bread barely rose to the rim of the pan.  I think that there are a couple of contributing factors.  One, as noted, this particular flour has a rather coarse grind.  Two, despite information from the recent interesting discussion about pan capacities, my experience with this and other formulae suggests that 3 cups of flour won’t produce a loaf that adequately fills a 9x5 pan.  There will be some variation in the final size of the finished breads, but very few can expand adequately to fill the pan without overproofing. 

Pretty or not, it makes a tasty sandwich and toast.

Two weeks ago, we were nearing the end of a week's vacation along South Africa's southern coast.  We had stayed in Kenton on Sea, Port Elizabeth and Plettenberg Bay.  On our way back to Plett from a day trip to Knysna (who knew it would be in the middle of their Oyster Festival?!), we passed a clearing beside the road with a large banner proclaiming "Saturday Market".  Not knowing quite what to expect, we made plans to return the next morning to see what might be available.  As it happened, we arrived at the market slightly ahead of opening time, so we wandered around the various stalls to see what there was to see as the artisans finished setting up.  There were paintings, beaded work, wire crafts, wood work, clothing and lots of other items to drool over.

Let us not forget the food!  We bought a big chunk of some absolutely wonderful cheese; something in the Emmenthaler / Swiss vein.  There was a place that had the most wonderful apple strudel, studded with raisins, bits of green fig preserves, nuts, and I'm not sure what else.  And they piped whipped cream over it at no additional cost, if you please.  I was pleased.  There were purveyors of olive, avocado and grapeseed oils.  Fresh herbs. Preserves.  Confits.  Pates.  And breads!

Le Fournil, a bakery from Plettenberg Bay, was represented that day.  Their focus was more on pastries, although they had lovely breads, too.  We purchased pain au chocolat from them.  The lady behind the counter spoke more French than I and I spoke more English, American style at that, than she so our conversation was limited.  Still, we got along.  Here are some pictures of the Le Fournil stand:

Ile de Pain, a bakery located in Knysna, was just a few booths to the right.  They featured a broad range of breads, all levain-based.  That was impressive, especially since the brioche I purchased was not just buttery but somewhat sweet, as well.  The brioche also contained nuggets of orange peel and golden raisins, with a sprinkling of coarse sugar on the top crust.  Oh. My. Goodness.  It was delightful with a smear of butter but absolutely intoxicating when toasted.  Here is how their booth looked:

And a closer look at the breads:

Baguettes are on the left and ciabatta front-center.

From the left: Vollkornbrot, 100% rye, brioche and (I think) a pain de compagne.

If you wanted, you could also buy your breakfast by the slice:

I will definitely miss these small weekend markets that are so common in so many places in South Africa.  There really hasn't been anything quite like them in the various places I've lived in back in the U.S.  Maybe it's just as well.  My waistline couldn't take too many shopping expeditions like this!

Paul

There was a bit of frost on the grass here in Pretoria overnight and the temperature inside the house at 6:30 this morning was a bracing 55ºF.  By 3:30 this afternoon, the indoor temperature had rocketed all the way up to 57ºF!  Another day or two of this and the granite counter tops in the kitchen should be chilled enough to handle laminated doughs with no risk of butter breakouts.  That, of course, assumes that the butter block is soft enough to be malleable.  I may have to set it out in the sun for a few minutes...

Paul

My wife and I took a few days this past week to visit an area of South Africa that we had not seen before: the Drakensberg (Dragon Mountains) in the KwaZulu Natal province.  While there, we arranged for a trip over the Sani Pass into Lesotho, a small, mountainous kingdom entirely surrounded by South Africa.  And why would I be mentioning this in a bread-dedicated site, you might ask?  Well, because of something that we did not realize was part of the tour: a visit to a small village just a few miles past the border.

Getting up Sani Pass is a challenge, whether for bikers, hikers, or vehicular traffic.  The pass itself tops out at 9,470 feet.  The route there is an unpaved road that twists and turns as it snakes its way up the mountainside.  4x4 is the order of the day for vehicles.  The following picture was taken about half-way in and about a quarter of the way up:

As you get closer to the top, the going becomes even more challenging:

After reaching the crest, there's the obligatory stop at Immigration:

After leaving Immigration, we drove across a plain whose tallest features were the shepherds and their flocks.  Vegetation seemed to consist primarily of knee-high tussocks of grass and heather.  We eventually arrived at a village consisting of perhaps a dozen stone huts:

Notice the white flag flying at this hut.  No, the occupants haven't given up.  The white flag indicates that bread and beer (a sorghum-based brew) are available for purchase.  A green flag would indicate vegetables and a red flag would indicate meat for sale.  

You might think from looking at the hut that the kitchen facilities are far too limited to support a bakery/brewery operation.  Limited, yes, but not too limited.  The "kitchen" is a battered wooden table against the wall opposite the door.  It holds a few bowls, some enameled metal drinking cups, and not much else.  There are a couple of larger plastic containers to the right of the table; that's the brewery.  The oven is a Dutch oven that rests on the hearthstone in the center of the hut.  The bedroom is a single bed against the wall to the right of the door; the living room is a stone bench built against the wall to the left of the door.  There are no interior walls.  Nor are there windows.  The local thinking is that windows make the hut harder to heat.  Smoke from the fire escapes through the doorway, if the door is open, or through the thatched roof.

The available fuel for fires:

The pile of "bricks" on the left is dried cow manure.  It is the primary fuel, supplemented with brush from the bundles on the right.

Despite what many of us would view as absolutely impossible conditions for turning out anything other than a flatbread, or maybe a bannock, Miriam (the hut's owner) makes some beautiful bread that she sells to flatland tourists like ourselves and to her neighbors.  And I'm not being patronizing in the slightest when I use the word beautiful.  See for yourselves:

Miriam's bread is both elemental and artisanal, in the best sense of that overworked word.  The ingredient list is limited to flour, water, salt and yeast.  She has no scale, yet each segment is wonderfully uniform in shape and size.  I'd guesstimate that each section weighs around 400g, perhaps a little less.  She regulates the heat by the quantity of coals beneath the DO and on its lid.  As you can see, the crust is a lovely brown; neither underbaked or scorched.  The crumb was moist and soft straight out of the DO.  I think that the flour used was mostly white, although some flecks of bran were visible.  The flavor was exactly what you want from bread: wheaty, yeasty goodness.

After a brief tutorial on Lesotho, in general, and life in the village, more specifially, we bought some bread and some handcrafts and then bid Miriam goodbye.

Before heading back down the pass, we stopped at the border for lunch at the highest pub in Africa:

Somehow, the pass looked even scarier as we started down than it did on the way up:

However, our driver got us back safe and sound.  And with a much greater appreciation for the so-called necessities that I think are required for making bread.  Knowing the difference between essentials and conveniences may be Miriam's biggest gift to me.

Paul