Category: baking

2020 – a Year of Making

2020 is finally out the door and 2021 has arrived. What an odd year it has been! Last December I came home from a vacation with a sewing machine. Thus, 2020 has been a year of sewing, and I haven’t done as much knitting or spinning as I have in the past. Here are my makes:

January:

February:

  • We continued to settle into the house, and I started a mini raised-bed garden.
  • I wrote an article for Ply Magazine that came out in their Basics issue in the fall!
  • I knit a washcloth for a friend.

March:

  • I mended my slippers.
  • I made a chemisette for a Regency outfit I’ve been quietly working on in the background. 

April:

May:

  • I mocked up the bodice of my Regency dress pattern. 
  • I made a colourful pinafore. 
  • I bought a rose bush and planted more seeds in the garden. 
  • I finished weaving a handspun/mohair lace scarf

June:

  • I started brewing Kombucha and Kefir.
  • I finished spinning the wool samples from the spinning class I took in the Fall of 2018.
  • My husband made me a yarn display for my wall. 
  • We went on a massive hike.
  • I made a T-shirt. 

July:

August:

  • I made a second pair of shorts. 
  • I finished a sparkly tunic I had started several years ago, but stalled out on due to fitting issues. 
  • I made an 18th century-inspired petticoat skirt.
  • My article was published in Ply Magazine!!

September:

October:

  • I made a corset-style bodice and paired it with my petticoat skirt for a Hobbity Halloween look. 
  • We got a puppy!!

November:

  • We spent a lot of time playing with and training our puppy. He is adorable and is growing like a weed!
  • I baked Pumpkin Sourdough Bread in the shape of a pumpkin. 
  • I moved my garden indoors.
  • I knit a tasseled shawl!

December:

Throughout the year I have enjoyed making things, especially clothes. I always seem to think that a garment will come together in just a few hours, and I am rarely right. I need to work on factoring in a realistic amount of time when planning a project and not beat myself up when it takes longer than I initially thought it would. There is nothing like getting dressed in clothes you have made yourself. It’s like a sort of armor against the world. I am looking forward to continuing my garment-sewing journey in 2021 and (spoiler) I’m considering quilting. Because I don’t have enough hobbies yet.

2019 Year in Review

This is the time of year when so many of us take time to look back on what we did last year and plan ahead for the coming year. Here is what I made in 2019.

  • Knitting:
    • Finished Items: I finished 4 knitting projects in 2019, which is significantly lower than in past years. I’ve had a lot going on with work last year, which has cut into my crafting time. Also I’ve been doing a lot more non-knitting crafts and making a larger variety of items.
      • Cobbled Hat
      • Bounce Baby Blanket
      • Headset Hats for my work team
      • Secret Shawl (More details are coming later this year. Patience is a virtue.)
      • Various washcloths – this is an ongoing project as we wear through our existing stash of washcloths.

    • In Progress:
      • 3 shawls
      • 2 sweaters
      • A hat
      • Socks
      • Slippers

knitting in progress

  • Weaving:
    • Finished Items:
      • Hand towels – these were a log cabin colourwork pattern using worsted weight cotton, and I gave them to my mom before I got photos.
    • In Progress:
      • Handspun/mohair wrap

loom.jpg

  • Sewing:
    • Finished Items:
      • Checked Blouse
      • Sashiko Square
      • Plaid Circle Skirt (I have yet to blog about this, but rest assured, details and photos are coming.)
      • Regency era chemise
      • Small embroidery

    • In Progress:
      • English Paper Pieced Quilt
      • Burgundy Linen Dress – this is a mashup of a circle skirt, and a vest pattern that I adore.
      • Red Sleeveless Blouse – I started this before I got married. It’s time it was finished.
      • Converting a skirt to a tunic – I’m not sure if this project can be rescued, but I am determined to try!
      • Regency era short stays

  • Other Crafts:
    • Finished Items:
      • I have baked a lot of bread! My focus this year has been on sourdough.
      • My sister and I collaborated to make a Narnia-themed mobile for my nephew.

2019 has been a busy year! I can’t wait to see what 2020 holds!

Baking Up a Storm!

I’m one of those people that gets interested in something, and then that’s all I do for the next month or two. Eventually a semblance of normalcy will return, but not too much (being too normal is boring). My most recent addiction is baking. Now that my sourdough starter is behaving I have been baking almost every weekend.

Last time we talked about bread, I had just made my first sourdough loaf. I loved it, but my husband wanted something less assertive, so I’ve been trying other recipes that use sourdough starter and commercial yeast together.

My first experiment was with Brioche. As in the last post, I used the recipe from Tartine Bread. If you are following along at home, I recommend that you use a half recipe when making this brioche. I made the full recipe, and it barely all fit in my Kitchenaid mixer! I had so much dough that I made 1 giant loaf, a dozen dinner rolls, and a whole passel of doughnuts!

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That’s right, I made doughnuts from scratch. Let me tell you: They were delicious!

I do need to brush up on my frying technique, though. I think the oil was not hot enough, so the doughnuts ended up slightly greasy. Still fantastc, but definitely something to improve on.

The bread has great flavor and texture with a nice, even crumb. It’s great for sandwiches and French Toast, or really anything you might use bread for.

The only thing I might change about the bread is the baking time. The bread seems a touch on the dry side, which makes me think I might have over-baked it slightly.

I am always amazed at how much there is to learn about such a seemingly simple topic as bread. Bon appetit!

Sourdough Update

Last time I talked to you about Sourdough I was having trouble with my starter. I found a lot of conflicting information online, and I was getting confused. I bought Tartine Bread by Chad Robertson to learn more about sourdough baking (I have learned so much from books. It’s my favourite way to learn new things!).

Tartine Bread

Chad runs a bakery in California, and he is a master at sourdough bread and variations thereon. He focuses on expending minimal effort to create the best bread possible. He does this by working with the nature of the dough, and by not skipping steps. The book has quite a few variations on several basic bread recipes, and also has recipes for what to do with your bread once it’s baked. Spoiler alert: it’s more than just sandwiches! Once I started following a single method my starter began behaving well – rising very high on a predictable schedule.

20190822_205546Just after mixing the jar was only 1/3 full.

I had a small misstep where I tried to bake a loaf the day before my starter really started to rise. The loaf looked nice, but hardly rose at all and was very dense. This was a good learning opportunity for me, since now I understand better how my starter looks when it is and is not ready. I always use the float test now.

Once my starter was behaving I had to bake some bread! I used the basic sourdough recipe from Tartine Bread. I followed the recipe and the suggested timings as closely as possible, and was rewarded with 2 absolutely beautiful loaves!

I also teamed up with my husband to make a pizza with a sourdough crust. Delicious, but next time I’d like to make the crust thinner, or perhaps bake it before I add the toppings.

I never knew how rewarding it would be to bake bread. There is nothing like enjoying the delicious bread you made yourself, or sharing it with friends. In that way, it’s kind of like knitting.

Sourdough

I grew up in a bread family. My mom made a lot of bread, and we all gobbled it up pretty much immediately. I live far away from my mom now, so if I want homemade bread I have to make it myself. Over the last few years I’ve made a few loaves with limited success, but it is frustrating to put in a bunch of time and effort only to end up with mediocre loaves that I’m not excited to eat. Recently I decided to try making bread again. Only this time I would be making sourdough bread.

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To make sourdough bread you begin with a starter. A starter is a mixture of water and flour that ferments – this is where the wild yeast grows, and also where beneficial bacteria grow that give the bread it’s sour flavor. Starters should be easy. I had trouble with mine. I was trying to be too technical, and my starter didn’t like it. After a frustrating first week, I realized I needed to simplify. After all, people have used sourdough starter as a leavening agent for centuries, and they don’t have all the fancy gadgets (or the scientific knowledge as to why and how sourdough works) that we have today. So I stopped worrying so much about temperatures and perfect ratios, and lo and behold my starter started doing what it was supposed to do!

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At this point I had been feeding my starter for 2 weeks and I had no bread to show for it. I had read that you can add sourdough starter to any bread recipe – you just substitute the starter for an equal amount of flour and liquid. So I tried it. I made a normal white bread loaf with some starter added in, and it turned out delicious! I made several lovely sandwiches with this bread, as you can see above.

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Finally after 3 weeks my starter was rising more or less predictably. The time had come to make true sourdough bread. I mixed my starter with an appropriate amount of flour, water, and salt, folded the dough a few times, waited a lot, and came out with an incredible loaf of bread!

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I had read that the first loaf from a starter may not rise much. This bread certainly isn’t tall, but look at the crumb and the lovely open structure of the bread! It tastes just as good as it looks, too! I still have a lot to learn about Sourdough, but I am so pleased that I finally made this happen! And truthfully, it wasn’t hard to do. The biggest challenge was being patient. If you’ve ever thought about trying your hand at sourdough, I would encourage you to jump right in! The water’s warm and the bread is delicious!

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P.S. This week I celebrated my 8th blogiversary. Thanks for joining me for the ride!