Baking at 6am

So by Friday, having started making the sourdough from a 125g piece of my starter "Hortense" on Wednesday, I finally get to make the bread, to be baked early Saturday Morning.

But as we have no bread left I made some rolls for lunch, a mixture of Wholemeal and White flours, covered with Black Onion seeds. As usual when making soft rolls I substituted 20ml of water for Olive Oil, it makes for a softer crumb.

 Incidentally, the hole in the crumb is from my digital thermometer. (95 degrees C and the bread is cooked)

To fill the rolls I mixed grated carrot and cheese with a little Mayo,

 if you’ve ever been to Totnes you may have brought rolls with a similar filling from Seeds bakery, although their rolls were different, much more wholegrain, with seeds in and on (the clue is in the name) I made the dough up at 8 am and left it to rise whilst I got on with the rolls. I also made savoury mince in the slow cooker, with onion and carrot. To accompany I roughly chopped potato and drizzled with oil and some mixed herbs. These will be cooked in the oven for about 45 minutes.

By 1 pm the dough had risen so I divided it into two loaves and some rolls. These will prove now until 6 tomorrow morning, at which point they will be baked.

We actually went to see the new James Bond film in Paignton last night, it’s very, very good, well worth a look, so 6am felt a bit early, but I put the oven on to max before I took the dogs out. By the way Paignton Seafront looked great last night; it was lit up all round the bay, with waves breaking in a riot of coloured foam, reflected from the lights.

 I opened the door, wow it was cold compared to yesterday, or even last night, but alright once you got going, a beautiful clear night sky with plenty of stars, my old friends from the days when I used them and my trusty sextant to get around the world.

To resolve my shaping issues with the slightly wetter sourdough that I prefer, I bake in Pyrex and Le Creuset casseroles which I had warmed in the oven. On my return I put the dough into the hot containers, steamed the oven and gave them 40 minutes (20 for the rolls).

The results say it all really. And there's nothing better than sourdough toast with home-made marmalade. Now for the soup.