Sourdough Baguettes

I'm having a go at sourdough again. It's a funny thing - something that seems a little scary, looks a little weird and smells quite strong. But it makes amazing bread, like nothing you can buy (except from lovely bakeries) and it feels like such an achievement to make yourself.

I made my own starter a few years ago but it didn't go so well, it came out smelling a bit like paint and the bread I made also had a very chemical taste. Fellow Cambridge food blogger Ivana offered up some sourdough on Twitter so I thought it was about time to have another go - plus maybe an already active and healthy starter was the way to go this time.

This starter is very low maintenance, it stayed in it's jar for a good 5 days before I started to prepare it for baking - I think you can leave it along for up to a week between feeds. It becomes more of a pet when you are preparing for a bake, requiring a feed every 12 hours.

For the actual dough it takes about a day of going in and out of the kitchen to knead, rest, knead again, prove etc. Ivana gave me a Hilary Cacchia recipe which I'm not sure if I am allowed to reproduce but this Dan Lepard recipe looks similar. I used 150g starter, 225 very strong white bread flour, 5g salt and 100ml room temperature water.

It's then a case of kneading for a few minutes, leaving for 30 minutes. Then a process of kneading for 20 seconds, leaving for 10, then repeating 3 times. Then leave to double in size. Then dividing the dough, leaving for 15, shaping into baguettes and placing on the baking tray. Leaving to double in size. Then bake for about 15 minutes in a hot oven til golden.

I think the crumb could have been a little more 'open' but overall the bread was fantastic. A beautiful crispy top and soft fluffy interior. I sliced them lengthways and we had them simply with fried garlic mushrooms and a little parmesan on top.

I've still got plenty of starter left, sitting happily in my fridge, so hopefully there will be more recipes coming here soon! Watch this space :)

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Cambridge Clandestine Cake Club - GBBO special!

A couple of weeks ago, on the night of the final of another fantastic series of The Great British Bake Off, the Cambridge Clandestine Cake Club gathered for an evening of GBBO themed cakes and a screening of the show itself.

The fantastic First and Last pub kindly gave us a venue to watch the programme and eat cake, there were 25 cakes in all kinds of flavours - flourless chocolate hazelnut, grapefruit bundt cake, hummingbird cake, orange and almond cake.. the list was indeed endless!

I baked the Apple Pie Cake from Edd Kimber's first book, The Boy Who Bakes - it is a fantastic recipe which makes a rather large cake! It was my first three layer cake - the sponge is light and gently spiced with nutmeg, cinnamon cream cheese frosting between the layers and finally topped with lightly cooked apples and golden spiced caramel.

Watching the bake off in a room full of 25 other keen bakers was brilliant, we shared the tense moments, the oohs and aahs and giggled at Mary Berry's double entendre. I'm really pleased John won too, he was a fantastic baker and learnt so much from the start of the series.

Our cakey evening also featured in Cambridge Evening News, and my silly face got in the paper later that week, along with my cake of course.

Following the cake club evening I'm really pleased to say I've agreed to be Miss Sue Flay's co-host for future Cambridge Clandestine Cake Club's - so watch out for more announcements from both of us about the next bake off - coming very very soon!

Find your nearest cake club on the site: www.clandestinecakeclub.co.uk

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