Etched Behind Eyelids | March 2022
My first baguettes
I made baguettes today for the first time. They are made with a 65% hydration dough, and I used instant yeast rather than my sourdough starter because I have a big stash of instant yeast that needs using and I didn’t want to feel disappointed if I spent 24 hours making a dough only to mess up the shaping and scoring! Thankfully, my first attempt at shaping and scoring baguettes went much better than expected, and they taste delicious!
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Sourdough Diaries | On Doing Things ‘Properly’
Four years ago today, I mixed equal parts flour and water in an attempt to make my own sourdough starter. It wasn’t my first foray into sourdough, or bread for that matter. Ed and I have made bread for years. Mum taught me how to make bread when I was a child, and Ed and I have always made quick rise loaves using instant yeast. They’re much tastier than supermarket bread, and they are quick and easy to make. The bread you get from throwing ingredients in the mixer and leaving the dough to rise just once in tins is perfectly adequate for toast and sandwiches, but it’s nothing spectacular.
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Birdsong and a red brick wall
All the birds are singing as I weave my way through bumper to bumper traffic on the Middleway, ignoring irate drivers who gesticulate wildly at me for having the audacity to walk on a pedestrian green, leaving them stranded in the box junction they impatiently straddled in heavy, slow moving traffic.
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Plant Diary | March 2022
My hoya kerrii grew lanky towards late summer. It put out some new leaves, but then aborted them, and I was left with a long stem with some leaves on the end. With the sun returning and spring on its way, I got snip happy with my secateurs and chopped it back to the main growth. It’ll grow a new vine from the same node and the cutting will be rooted and popped back in the same pot for a fuller plant later in the season. I think I underwaterered it hence the aborted leaves. I’m still learning, and so fearful of overwatering that sometimes I’m too cautious.
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