Sourdough

Sourdough is bread with a natural leaven i.e no yeast. Dating back to 1500BC, it is the more than likely to be the original leavening available for bread baking. This is biblical bread.

As sourdough uses no yeast you need to create your own leaven or 'starter' of flour and water, and feed it for several days in the hope of catching the natural yeasts in the air and breeding them, as they breed they give off carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide produces a bubbly mix which (hopefully) will help your bread rise.
I cheated a little by making my starter on my bread baking day, hoping that the yeast in my dough (and therefore in the air in my kitchen) would encourage the natural yeasts in my sourdough to breed.

I used Hugh Fearnely-Whittingstall's recipe from 'The family cookbook'

day one

Measure 3 heaped tablespoons of organic strong white flour into a large mixing bowl. Add a tablespoon of organic wholemeal flour. Tip in the juice of half a orange and enough lukewarm still mineral water or rain water (I used boiled and cooled tap water but Hugh says not too) to make a thick stir-able dough - about 4 tablespoons.

Stir this mixture and then beat it with a wooden spoon or a whisk for a few minutes to drive air into it. Cover the bowl with clingfilm and set it aside in a warm place.

day two

Day two:

Check for frothy bubbles- signs that your mixture is 'breeding' and therefore producing carbon dioxide gas.

Beat in another 4 tbsp of white and wholemeal flour just as before, plus 4 tbsp of water.

Cover with more clingfilm and leave overnight.

day three

Day three:

Hopefully the dough will be quite active - bubbling furiously and rising up the bowl.

Beat in another 4 tbsp of flour and 4 of water.

Cover and leave overnight.
day four

Day four:
Tip in 6 tbsp of organic flour - 5 of white and 1 of wholemeal. Stir well and allow the dough to rise again but just for 2-3 hours this time.



final stage

The dough will look puffy.

Take out 2 tbsp of dough mix and put in a small bowl and put to the side. (This is now your starter for your next loaf.)

Tip in 125ml water and 300g organic strong white flour, plus 2tsp of salt and enough warm water to make a smooth dough.

Mix, knead, prove and bake (200c for 25 - 30 Min's) as you would any other loaf. This loaf will take much longer to rise than a regular loaf and won't rise as much either.

unbaked dough

fresh from the oven

Although this was a lengthy process it wasn't hard work, in fact it was rater fun to keep checking in hope of finding your starter had worked and started breeding.

The starter had a slightly sour smell to it, not unpleasant, rather like beer (unsurprisingly)
The dough was great to work with too, the finished bread was delicious, it wasn't as heavy as I'd expected it had a lovely texture and chewy crust....with a slight sour tang, delicious!

Wholemeal honey bread

I love baking bread, it is one of those foods that you can't rush, it needs love and attention and never fails to make me feel like domestic goddess. Homemade bread is the best, nothing compares to the aroma that fills the house from bread baking in the oven. Well, maybe the only thing that rivals the smell is the taste of warm bread, fresh from the oven and smothered in butter.

I bake a lot of bread although havent blogged about it, I thinks is probably because it doesn't hang around long enough to have it's photo taken.



My usual homemade breads are a plain white loaf, always popular and naan bread (my personal fave) I try not to eat white bread often, preferring wholemeal / brown loafs in place as I have found homemade brown loafs quite heavy, until I tried this recipe from Rachel Allen.

This brown loaf took my fancy as it uses honey in place of sugar, I prefer natural sugars to processed white sugar, it takes a wee while but is well worth it. This recipe makes enough for two loafs I split the dough and added a bag of mixed seeds to one half of the dough (but forgot to take a picture :)) I think I preferred the seeded loaf and will make this one often.
Rachel Allen's wholemeal honey bread
makes 2 x 900g loaves
450ml warm water
3 tbsp honey
3 tsp dried yeast
600g strong white flour
300g wholemeal flour
2 tsp salt
100g butter,cut into cubes.

In a small bowl, mix the warm water with the honey, add the yeast and leave to stand for 5 minutes until frothy.

Place the flours in a big mixing bowl (or the bowl of a electric mixer) and mix in the salt and then rub in the butter. Pour most of the frothy liquid into the flour and mix to a dough - it should not be too wet and sticky; if it's too dry add more warm water and if it's too wet, add more flour.

Knead by hand on a floured surface for about 10 minutes (it may only take 5 minutes in a mixer) until the dough is smooth and springy. Place in a large oiled bowl, cover with cling film and leave somewhere warm (like a warm spot in your kitchen) for 2-3 hours until it's doubled in size. It has risen enough when it does not spring back when you push your finger onto the dough.

When it's risen, knock back by punching it down in the bowl and kneading on a floured surface for 1 minute. (This is when I add the bag of mixed seeds) Allow to rest on the work surface, covered with a tea towel for 5 minutes before shaping it. (Rachel makes 2 round or oval loaves) Slash the loaves four or five times with a sharp knife.

Preheat the oven to 200c/ gas mark 6.

Place the loaves on a floured baking tray, sprinkle with flour (or more seeds if using) and cover with a tea towel and allow to rise (this may take another 45 minutes) and, again, leave somewhere warm until they have doubled in size. The dough has risen enough when it does not spring back when you push your finger onto it.

Remove the teatowel and bake the bread in the oven for 30-40 minutes or until it sounds hollow when tapped on the base.
Leave to cool on a wire rack.


This is a delicious loaf, very light not dense and heavy. I sliced one loaf and froze it, next time I shall up the ratio of wholemeal flour to white.

This bread will be a regular in our house.

Award time

I have been given another award, this time from Jilly at 2 drumsticks and a bottle of wine, please go and check out Jilly's lovely blog and see who else she passed her award on to.


I have to pass on this award to 5 other blogger's, here are the rules:


1. Choose 5 blogs that you consider deserving of this award for their creativity, design, interesting material and their contribution to the blogging community.


2. Each award has to have the name of the author and a link to his/her blog.


3.Each award winner has to show the award and put the name of and a link to the blog that presented him/her the award.


4.The award winner and the one who has given the prize has to show the link of Arte Y Pico blog so everyone will know the origin of this award.


5. Show the rules.

Thank you Jilly for my award, I am going to pass it on to:

1. Kelly jane at 'Cooking the books'

2. Linda at 'Thinking about food'

3. Laura at 'Hungry and frozen'

4. Amy at 'The New Nigella'

5. Kerry at 'Me and my three'

Congratulations to these very deserving blogger's, go and have a look at their blogs and see who they pass the award on to.

Daring bakers

Chocolate eclairs

Daring bakers time again, my first challenge last month, was extremely challenging and although delicious the finished cake was not as attractive as I would have liked. I was so looking forward to this months challenge but slightly apprehensive at the same time, however when I discovered what this months challenge was any apprehension I had melted away.






This months challenge was hosted by Tony Tahhan and MeetaK from 'whats for lunch honey?' - they choose Pierre Herme's Chocolate eclairs from 'Chocolate desserts' (Pierre Herme & Dorie Greenspan) I was so excited by this recipe choice, I love Pierre Herme's recipes and I adore chocolate eclairs.

The challenge consisted of three elements, pate a choux (choux pastry), chocolate pastry cream
and a chocolate glaze.

Modifications: The hosts stipulated that the choux pastry dough used must be the Pierre Herme recipe, however we could veer away from the filling and glaze recipes as long as one of the original chocolate elements remained. I chose to keep the original chocolate glaze but substituted the pastry cream filling for regular whipped cream - while I like pastry cream, for me a eclair needs whipped cream.

The choux pastry was relatively straight forward, bring milk, water, butter sugar and salt to a boil, add flour and stir vigorously until the dough comes together, stir a little longer so the dough can dry out a little.

In a mixer, add the eggs to the dough, the dough is ready when it is thick and shiny. While the dough is still warm it needs to be shaped, this is the fun part, using a 2cm plain tip nozzle pipe the dough onto baking sheets in 4 inch long eclair shapes.

I found the cooking instructions a little odd, Pierre's recipe instructed to bake the eclairs for 7 minutes, then slip the handle of a wooden spoon into the oven door to keep it ajar. After the eclairs have cooked for a total of 12 minutes the baking sheets need to be rotated from front to back then cooked for a further 8 minutes. They should emerge from the oven golden and firm.

I am not sure why the spoon is inserted in the door, maybe to moderate the heat, maybe to let out steam (although I was always told eclairs need steam) and I am not sure if it was completely necessary but I did as I was told. I did veer from the recipe at one point by slitting the eclairs with a sharp knife as they came out of the oven - Pierre's recipe did not stipulate this but if hot air is trapped inside a eclair it will go soggy and no one wants a soggy bun.

When the eclairs were cool I sliced them in half and lay the top half on a wire rack to be glazed. Pierre Herme's chocolate glaze is absolutely wonderful, I will use this again for other cakes, totally delicious and very simple too.

In a saucepan bring heavy cream to a boil, remove from the heat and add chopped chocolate. Stir in butter and Pierre's chocolate sauce (dark chocolate,water, double cream and sugar,boiled together in a small saucepan,then cooked gently until thickened). This makes the most delicious chocolate glaze.

I piped the chocolate glaze over the 'tops' of the eclairs, I found piping it gave me more control over where the glaze went and allowed a thick covering. Once the glaze had set I filled the bottoms with very softly whipped double cream and placed the lids on top.

This recipe was delicious and I really enjoyed this one, especially compared to the stress my first challenge caused last month. I will definitely makes these eclairs again.

Thank you to this months hosts, Tony Tahhan and MeetaK the recipe for these eclairs can be found on their blogs, don't forget to check out other Daring baker's challenges on the Daring bakers blogroll.