Everyone given up baking?

[Phil Pascoe]

This morning's offerings - Cornish splits. You know, the things that proper cream teas are made with, not those scones they use in Devon. But then, they don't know much - they even put the jam and the cream on the wrong way around.

On a more serious note, I found a quite good, cheap wholemeal flour - atta, or chapati flour. £4 for 10kgs at Lidl. It's only 10% protein but makes fair bread and is perfectly good to cut with other flours.

 

[Logger]

Those look delicious. I need to get back to baking bread. I go through periods of baking, then stop for some reason and find I don't start again.

Having said that, I purchased an amazing loaf of sourdough bread at a farmers market yesterday. Had to take out a mortgage to buy it, but was define. Now I need a recipe as i have not made sourdough before.

Nick

 

[bugbear]

I bought the ingredients for my next Be-Ro cook book fruit cake yesterday - ouch on the wallet, especially ground almonds.

I make a large cake every coupla' months (it keeps well) which is then sliced for tea accompanying purposes.

BugBear

 

[Harbo]

I made a loaf yesterday but I used my Panasonic bread maker.
Turned out lovely [SMILING FACE WITH SMILING EYES]

Rod

 

[gregmcateer]

....I make a large cake every coupla' months (it keeps well) which is then sliced for tea accompanying purposes.
BugBear

What an excellent turn of phrase - It completely justifies the consumption of cake! =D>

We're enjoying my Missus' lemon cake with curd AND lemon butter cream (middle and top, obviously!)

Fitness session tonight...

 

[Sheffield Tony]

Given up baking ? NO ! Not been gettting much woodworking done of late though, because I've been busy building this at the bottom of the garden:

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Very, very nice. I've got permission to build a barbie ... that doubles as a forge ... I wonder if I can kill three birds with one stone ...?
What is the spec. for the bricks?

 

[Rorschach]

Wrong way round?! You Cornish don't know what you are talking about!

 

[transatlantic]

I heard about this pizza oven in garden craze on the radio.

Out of interest, other than being able to reach much higher temperatures, thus cooking things faster, what benefit does it have over your normal garden bbq?

 

[Logger]

Out of interest, other than being able to reach much higher temperatures, thus cooking things faster, what benefit does it have over your normal garden bbq?

It looks cool and after a few beers out in the garden, you can bring out a large repertoire of "carry on" film innuendos

 

[Racers]

I made a pot of Red current Jam a week or so ago.

Pete

 

[lurker]

I made a pot of Red current Jam a week or so ago.

Pete

Are you positive?

 

[Austinisgreat]

I made a pot of Red current Jam a week or so ago.

Pete

Are you positive?

As opposed to Black current - very negative! :shock: :lol:

 

[Sheffield Tony]

Out of interest, other than being able to reach much higher temperatures, thus cooking things faster, what benefit does it have over your normal garden bbq?

I think that Jamie Oliver using his brick built oven perhaps started it off. I was certainly jealous of it. But also we are philhellenes in our house, and I love the Greek ξυλόφουρνο (wood fired oven) and the slow cooked food that can be made in one. It is quite a different beast to a barbecue, it is an oven not a grill. I made mine as a bit of a compromise. For pizza, you push the fire aside and cook on the hot surface with the fire still burning, so you get a crispy base and a grilling from reflected heat above. I've made my vault a bit higher that ideal because I want to be able to try breads, and the slow cooking dishes that you do after the fire has died down using just the stored heat in the bricks.

Phil - the facing bricks are your normal LBC heathers, but the critical insides are made of refactory brick. The cooking surface is of bricks out of storage heaters, recovered from a skip. I couldn't get enough for the vault, so they are Vitcas firebricks - they are almost 4kg each ! There's about half a tonne of firebrick and fireclay in there, so hopefully it will hold heat for a while.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Bedfordshire is a bit far for me to come for a kleftico ... shame ...

You have a door for it, I assume?

 

[bugbear]

I think that Jamie Oliver using his brick built oven perhaps started it off. I was certainly jealous of it.

It appears (from some research) that Jamie first showed his oven on "Jamie At Home" in 2008; the oven was a Valoriani (Very Posh), distributed in the UK by "Orchard Ovens".

Looking in the USENET archive, which is both old and has posts with dates on them, the impetus seems to start around 2005 (although some people were a good deal earlier), so I think Jamie was a publiciser, not an innovator.

BugBear

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I think Jamie was a publiciser, not an innovator...
No! Surely not??

 

[Sheffield Tony]

Nothing's completely new. My FIL is Ukranian by birth, and says it look just like the ovens they had in Ukraine many decades ago, that they were so happy to exchange for gas or electric ovens.

 

[MIGNAL]

This is a bit like the internet inventing the close set cap iron (oops!).
They go back thousands of years. Not that different from ancient clay ovens.
Back in the very early 90's I remember an Italian friend telling me that they had such wood fired ovens (or very similar) in some Italian pizzerias. In fact we discussed the idea of opening one up here in the UK. Seemed like hard work and a fair amount of money so it never got beyond the conversation. Drinking the beer and talking about it just seemed a lot easier!

 

[bugbear]

This is a bit like the internet inventing the close set cap iron (oops!).
They go back thousands of years. Not that different from ancient clay ovens.
Back in the very early 90's I remember an Italian friend telling me that they had such wood fired ovens (or very similar) in some Italian pizzerias.

I don't think anyone's claiming the oven are a new design.

I think having one of them in an English garden is new-ish.

BugBear