Big distances eh? Our friends Axel, and Liz are in Galapagos so i keep
thinking ooh we'l see them soon, not far behind. But the Galapagos is over
3600 miles away - like being in Panama from St Lucia, further than Gib to St
Lucia. Tahiti is is 149 degrees west of Greenwich Meridian, St Martin
63west so that's 76degrees, bit over 20% round the world. Jeez. We're not
nearly there yet at all. Greenwich is on the same longitude as med, erm
around Benidorm actually, but getting back to st martin is easiest from
here - i wd go via cape town, not the shooting gallery. tahiti in an hour
or so...
Quite wonderful breadmaking here on boat and very cheering it is too. Anna
says there's absolutely nothing better than fresh bread. Oh, just stop
sniggering will you? Anyway, it's very fab. After years of experimentation,
inedible foul-ups and solid research by bio-experts including james (well
ok, james mainly, and some others) ...this is how you do it.
Two sachets of dried yeast - it's gotta be in date. Hovis, any brand.
7-11grams. heapy teaspoon if loose
1 kg flour - stingo sez freeze it 3 days to kill any chance of weevils. Not
brown at this beginner's stage - just ordery plain flour.
2 teasp sugar,
2 teasp salt,
2 buttered bread loaf tins,
700ml warmish water - warm enough for a very warm bath, not too warm to dip
things like hands in. warmer than "tepid" colder than hot tea.
Pour off some of the 700ml water into two tumblers - about an inch in each.
One of these tumblers is "spare if needed" - leave to one side for the mo.
Into other watery tumbler mix the yeast, sugar and salt. This is james's
breakthrough - so all the yeast "sees" all the salt and sugar. Whirl it
around, good few minutes. Don't pour out the salt and sugar ovr the flour
cos
it can all sploosh out like Para did once haha - he started this whole saga
of Mojomo breadmaking. Also, don't bother sneakily putting in 5 bags of
yeast like me and patS did as a joke on para another time - makes not much
dfference - you don't have to dig it out of the oven or anything. Just
tastes very yeasty. Boo!
Now chuck that mixed tumbler back into main jug of water, rinse it all
in... and put all of that now brownish water into the flour.
Bosh the mix around by hand a fair bit but not TOO much need for loads
"kneading" - keith hardly did any and his bread was fine. At this juncture
you can tell the pat santry joke: why did the constipated baker have shite
all over his hands? because he kneaded a pooh.
You are aiming for a dough that is a single "thing" if possible - not a
gooey mass, but not dry bits. "They say" the target is the consistency of a
woman's breast. Hm. I tell this to people and get all sorts of responses
incl one guy who asked "how old?" and another "from what angle?" and so on.
Well, just dough, ok?
You can use the extra bit of water in spare tumbler - the aim was to make
sure you put in ALL the yeast and sugar and salt regardless. That spare it
of water is just fine adjustment if needed.
damp towel over the bowl to avoid dough drying out, somewhere warm
Not just a bit warmish like indoors is warmer than outdoors in Scotland but
still need coat on in April - warm like in the equatorial sun is fine. Or
in an engineroom with motor flailing away. Just warm enough to not die.
You want the bread to double in volume, ish. 20-30 mins. If no rising you
can kickstart and warm it all in microwave, 10-20 seconds. if that doesn't
work, start again. your yeast was rubbish.
Second rising: You do this to avoid masive holes in loaf. Bash down the
mix whack it a bit like proper bakery person, bash bash bashity bash.... and
split in two, put in buttered or oiled bread tins. can mix in finely
chopped onion now like Stingo did, quite good for savory sarnies. praps
just into one loaf else strawberry jam is gonna be yuk. Avoid massive
folds in loaf cos your loaf will fall in half. Quite good to tamp down each
tin with the base of the other. Advanced Laura and/or James types - now is
the time for "Mojomo" logo to be cut from pastry and applied to loaf.
back to warm place for second rising. it should rise out of the tin. if
not, it'll be rubbish. Don't hope for magic in the oven - what you put in
come out about same shape. save the gas and don't cook rubbish. For a boat
oven top shelf 30 -40 mins at max gas. Turn them around after 20mins.
Don't open oven every 5 mins like Glynn did else it'll collapse.
tara! -fab bread.
If you're american and soem people (me) horridly take the mick out of peanut
butter jello sandwiches which sound just weird... cut loaf and make the
sandwiches so they have no option but to eatem for lunch like Eric did !
Not bad! Otherwise just free-for all. My sons ate whole loaf whilst some
othr people were coming round saying ooh, fresh bread, so when they arrivd -
no bread. hah! One loaf is loads for two lunch, two loaves will go
completely at lunch with six . unless it's cack. Try again.
Nice Dominic in Las Palmas showed us special tin that lets u cook the
bread on the gas ring - not oven - cheaper see? But bread a bit angled
due to resulting loaf being an annulus. I bet you don't even know what an
"annulus" is eh you doughnut! ?? Well, hah, that's another joke cos an
annulus IS a doughnut. Doughnut shape anyway. Not that bad a joke? Better
than freakin Delia anway?!! . Oops no - you're right - Norwich City...
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