I am not about to start home brewing but I decided to have a
go at baking bread. I bake lots of bread but it is usually whole-wheat and the
kind that is mixed and baked without kneading (or with a bread machine which gives
a great result but is curiously unsatisfying).
I have tried various yeast-based things in the past – without success:
the doughnuts looked more like gingernuts.
Having invested in “fast-action
yeast” all the recipes seemed to use instant yeast (where you find fresh yeast
in London goodness knows). However, I found this recipe online Handbaked
traditional white bread and set to work.
The first thing to hit me was
the smell. I was instantly transported back to the kitchen of my childhood
where our cook (who came from what was then Portuguese East Africa and is now
Maputo) used to make white bread, rolls and sometimes bagels several times a
week. The recipe was the same and, although I never realised it, it was the
recipe for challah – the only difference being that it was plaited in the
traditional way for Friday night.
Who knows what the recipe was –
he never used a written recipe but cooked by touch and taste. I did learn how
to make the thinnest crepes by watching him and certainly licked the bowl when
chocolate cake was being made but never thought of writing anything down, and
how would you calculate the measures as he measured by handfuls.
What is also quite curious – I
have never kneaded bread before but I seemed to know how – some sort of folk
memory or just watching chefs on TV! Yes, it was very soothing and the smell of
the fermenting yeast, the dough and the baking bread was déjà vu all over
again!
I still think I prefer the
whole-wheat kind and can only aspire to the giant challah my sister makes for
her Friday night dinner but it was a satisfying day and the result was OK as
well.
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