Saturday 27 July 2013

Spelt Roasted Garlic Focaccia

Today I am trying to make a roast garlic focaccia for mum from spelt flour. This is the test run which I will force feed to my other half! If it gets approval from Doug then i'll recreate it for my lovely mum! 



When I first started making it I was dubious as spelt flour has a weaker than normal gluten strands when it has been kneaded. So I added a little more oil and water than called for to increase the development of glutenin in the dough. You can tell this worked as my dough the. Looked more like a pair of my granny's knickers once it was kneaded than bread dough! I also added a little more yeast than necessary as my yeast is not very fresh any more and is a little inactive at time and also to try get some air in what is normally a denser loaf.


It was almost more elastic than my dough is with strong white bread flour!!

So I have greased up a square container and left the dough to rise. I am going let it rise and fall perhaps 3 times over the period of the day to really get some air in the dough which should help the fact that  spelt bread is often dense. Fingers crossed!!


Friday 29 March 2013

Pandora and chicks!

I have had a pretty rubbish day today... The stress and strains of the past 6 months are finally being released! But on a positive note I did find my favourite pandora charm which my mum gave me. It's a cupcake!! I found it under the bed, I don't know why I didn't look there originally!!





And I also sewed some Easter cards for mum and dad, my aunt and uncle, brother and his gf and my darling husband! I'm quite pleased with them providing I whipped them up at the last minute!!






Thursday 21 March 2013

Graze Box!

Everyone has a guilty pleasure, or so I tell myself! And mine other than loving singing to Glee is snacking on finger food... Olives, popcorn, munch seeds. You get the idea! So as you can imagine the Graze boxes have naturally appealed to me! So my husband came home with a voucher if which there are many. Normally I would dismiss the idea of trying new things where a freebie is offered to entice you but I cracked the other day and dared to be daring! So I went online and orders my graze box. There was loads to choose from, not to much to be overwhelming but enough to offer variety to regulars. I selected what were my favourites (or what I thought would be) and ticked items I wanted to try very soon in hope my box would contain my choices. So when it arrived I was delighted my four favourites were there! I can't wait to try it tomorrow at work. I unfortunately can't keep it going as its just too expensive but if it ever decreases in price I would defiantly do it regularly based on what I have seen never the less tasted!








Friday 1 March 2013

Photo editing

After finding a blog with beautiful photos I have decided I want to try editing my photos a little more than normal. So here are my first few: