sourdough: day 1

new batches of sourdough: wholemeal, white and spelt...grow, grow, grow...can't wait to use them!

left to right: wholemeal, white and spelt

Dublin bread...and cheese

So a little bit more chatting and not baking before I start making some breads, hopefully very soon...

Almost 2 months living in Dublin already (well, more come back to live here after almost 7 years) and starting to settle down, so what better than check out bakeries and breads in Dublin. Little bit of research and decided to go to 3 of them, artesian bakeries.

Fist one was The Bretzel Bakery in Portobello, nice Dublin area along one of the canals. This bakery is open since 1870 although has changed owners.The Bakery is well known to generations of the Dublin Jewish community and still known as the Jewish Bakery with it's Kosher status re-established since William Despard and Cormac Keenan took over in 2000.

The Bretzel Bakery in Lennox Street, Dublin 8

They have a good selections of breads, whites, browns, rye, some specialities and confectionary and breakfast, with 4 sourdough: 100% rye, 30%rye, pizza base and small sourdough. This last one, the small sourdough is the one I bought and tried with one of the 3 cheese I got in Sheridans Cheesemonger off Grafton st. I have to thanks staff of this shop for their recommendations and being so professional and kind. You can see in this picture this bread with an irish cheese that I really like: Coolea Mature, from West Cork.

Sourdough from Bretzel Bakery with Coolea cheese

Next bakery was Il Valentino, an italian artisan bakery in Gran Canal, another very nice Dublin area. They only use the 4 ingredients and nothing else (flour, yeast, water and salt) and have as well a good range of breads, patries and cakes, including a sourdough bread. They also have a cafe where you can sit and try their range of products.

Il Valentino Bakery and Cafe

When I was there they didn't have the sourdough bread so I chose the stoneground flour load. Very crusty bread, nice crumbs. This time I used a spanish manchego mature cheese (yeah, couldn't avoid tomato and olive oil)

Stoneground from Il Valentino with Mature Manchego cheese

Last but not least, Paris Bakery, a french bakery in the busy Jervis area. This bakery is quite new (opened in november 2010) and founded by french baker Yannick G. Forel. They also have a nice coffee area where you can taste they breads and pastries.

Paris Bakery in Moore Str.

Loads of bread that you can check from the window and of course I went for a sourdough french baguette. but they have a few more sourdough breads, including a 1kg and another than seemed to be a 6kg sourdough! bread for a few days. So french bread, french cheese. This time a pure recommendation from Sheridans Cheesemonger, Ardi Gasna, a Basque-French from the Pyrenees area cheese meaning literally in basque "sheep cheese". I have to say that the combination of this bread and this cheese was my favourite

Sourdough baguette from Paris bakery with Ardi Gasna cheese

epis

Second bread I baked today was some epis based in the recipe of Reinhart Pain de Campagne and I said based because I didn't use any paté fermenté but sourdough. I always wanted to try to bake an epi and now that I did it I realize how easy it is. Adding someyeast to the dough helps to reduce the the time of fermentation. So I did two fermentations, one of 2 hours and the second for 1 hour and the dough was ready for baking.

About the recipe: well, well, i follow at some point the recipe in Reinhart's book the bread baker's apprentice but as I said I used sourdough instead of paté fermenté. In the recipe he said after mixing all the ingredients, knead and add the flour you thinks it's necessary and that what I did. The problem is that finally I don't know how much I put and for so I m going to put here the ingredients but the quantities will be approximated. Sorry for this small confusion. especially because the bread was very good:

300-350g white strong flour

20g rye flour

20g wholemeal flour

120g white flour sourdough

6 g salt

3g quick yeast

175g water

After the second fermentation I cut the dough in 4 pieces, flatted them in rectangles and fold them in loaves, then made some baguettes and cut them with the scissors to make epis. it's easier than you think. Around 20 min in the oven at max. temperature the first 8 min (in my

case 240 degrees) and then at 180 degrees.

In the pics you might think they are together but there are for separate ones. I recommended

this bread if you have guess at home, they are very easy to do and your friends will be delighted with the flavour and the presentation!

Tourism, the rugby match and the bread

Lidia came this weekend to visit me in Belfast. Very happy. We did loads of things and had a great time. Yesterday we went to the botanic gardens, including the glass house and the Ulster Museum.

But we did some gastronomic tourism and of course some bread was target. St. George Market runs on Fridays, Saturday and Sundays, and basically you can find different kind of foods, from curry to sausages to fresh fish and meat to paella. But many of these tends are baking ones. Scones, tarts, cakes, and all different kind of breads: some from ireland and the north, like Irish soda or potato bread and international ones like focaccia or baguettes. Our eyes went straight to a sourdough fig and cranberry loaf. You can see in this picture the shop and the owners, with all the different breads they sell. Special attention please to the blueberry scones at the bottom, they look amazing.

Back to the house, we rest for half and hour and went to one of the best times we spent together during this days: rugby match in Ravenhill. Ulster played with Benetton Treviso (we won, 32-13, go Ulster!) and had a amazing time there. First part was very good, second part a little more quiet and the third part (that's what you call after the match, when you basically drink beer) was maybe the funniest. We stayed in one of the stadium bars, chatting with different people, including some of the ulster rugby players.

Of course, after a few beers (just a few, I promise) we went back home starving, so we decided to attack the bread we bought in the morning, with some sardinian pecorino cheese that my friend Gianmaria gave to me a few days ago and roasted chestnut chutney. Check the pictures here. We ate them all.

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