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For the love of….bread

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At the very beginning of my journey to country bumpkindom, I ‘met’ a gentleman.  This gentleman followed dear old Margot’s chronicles (or mad woman’s rantings as Jerry affectionately refers to the blog) on Twitter from first chirp and has tweeted and retweeted my posts countless times.  He has encouraged others to follow, saved me from kitchen disasters, provided invaluable advice and yet we have never been in the same room as each other.  You may be wondering why I am telling you all this, dear Reader.  Who is this gentleman?  He is known as Mr Blackbird.  Other than being a thoroughly nice chap who has taken pity on a muddled Margot, the fact of the matter is that Mr Blackbird has a specialist skill.  A skill which I am keen to master.  A skill which will help to transform Margot from townie to home grown bumpkin.  He is a……..baker!

“If thou tastest a crust of bread, thou tastest all the stars and all the heavens.” - Robert Browning(photo: BLlackbird Bread)

“If thou tastest a crust of bread, thou tastest all the stars and all the heavens.” – Robert Browning
(photo: Blackbird Bread)

To give Mr Blackbird a proper introduction, he and Mrs Blackbird started Blackbird Bread, a micro-bakery in Twickenham, in 2012.  They bake bread (quite obviously) and cakes all from home, selling to friends and neighbours, the surrounding community and local markets.  11 types of bread and 3 different cakes can be ordered by text, phone or email and are delivered on foot (if within walking distance) or picked up by their loyal followers 3 times a week.  Quite frankly, when the bread looks this good, why wouldn’t you buy it?

Blackbird Bread - don't mind if I do! (c) Blackbird Bread

Certainly NOT half-baked! The delicious loaves made by Mr and Mrs Blackbird.
(photo: Blackbird Bread)

Well dear Reader, on Margot’s New Year’s list of to-dos was: No.17 Bake a decent loaf of bread.  This has been somewhat of a holy grail quest for me for some years now.  I simply cannot bake ordinary bread.  Variations on a theme of soda bread, including one with cheese and bacon – done.  A real loaf – absolutely not.  That was UNTIL I met Mr Blackbird.  Armed with Mr Blackbird’s Basic White recipe (which can be found here on Mr B’s blog http://blackbirdbread.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/a-loaf-for-heather-or-bread-basics-101.html), I gingerly tested my baking skills.  Jerry was quite bemused at my ‘Mr B says that you have to….and Mr B said that you should do that…’ but the pep talk and recipe prevailed and I baked my SECOND ever proper loaf with resounding success.  (First loaf lost its bottom crust as I wasn’t liberal enough with the flour on the tray).  However, with some practice loaves under my belt, I think that I may have finally passed the test!

Margot's humble cottage loaf

Margot’s humble cottage loaf

Anyway, I thought if Mr Blackbird could teach a ridiculously hopeless case like me how to bake, then I must encourage him to give up his baking secrets to you, dear Reader.  He very kindly said he would oblige so for the first Margot guest post ever………OVER TO YOU, Mr B!

“Blackbird Bread’s Top 5 tips”

Hi! The brilliant Margot has kindly invited me to do a guest post on her lovely blog. An honour!

I work for Blackbird Bread, a micro-bakery in Twickenham, providing homemade bread and cake for the local community. We bake from home, using a domestic oven, nothing fancy, just real honest food! Please visit our blog for more information – http://blackbirdbread.blogspot.co.uk/

Margot asked if I would provide my top 5 tips for baking a loaf of bread, but instead I’ve compiled a list of baking bits and pieces that are invaluable when making a loaf! Really the list could go on and on, so I’ve had to be quite strict!

  1. Digital scales Essential. You can get away with normal kitchen scales when weighing out large quantities of flour, but 7g of yeast is almost impossible to see without digital scales. (You can use measuring spoons, or a teaspoon, to weigh out measurements, but they’re never 100% accurate). They’re not too dear (ours cost £10).
  2. Clingfilm/black bin bags Yes, you heard right! The oft thought misconception about baking, and proving, is that you need to put things on top of a radiator, or in a warm place. Whilst that is useful, it isn’t vital. By using clingfilm or a black bin bag, you ensure the heat and moisture from the dough remains in the bowl as the gluten stretches and the dough proves.
  3. Water spray Cheap as chips, usually costs £1 and is necessary to keep the dough hydrated when it goes into the oven. Bakers’ ovens have built in steamers and sprays so this simply replicates that.
  4. Roasting tray When you switch the oven on (at least 45 minutes before you put the dough into it), put a roasting tray at the bottom of your oven. Leave it and let it get good and thirsty! Pop the kettle on and, just after you spray your loaf and put that in the oven, pour the boiling water from the kettle into the roasting tray and close the oven door as quickly as you can! The steam will fill your oven and maintain hydration for your loaf throughout the bake.
  5. Baking stone/pizza stone By all means use a roasting tray to bake bread in, but you can’t beat a stone that sits in the oven and gets incredibly hot. Your bread will start to cook the second it hits the stone if it’s in the oven for long enough (same time as the roasting tray for steaming – at least 45 mins before baking). The pizza stone is much thinner and usually round, so is brilliant for single loaves. The baking stone is thicker and is, basically, a paving stone, so is quite heavy, but can take two loaves at a time.
  6. (I know I said five tips!) Breadknife A sharp breadknife will be needed to score/slash your loaf just before it goes into the oven. A simple horizontal mark, approximately 1 cm deep, will allow you to control how the loaf will rise and will help to avoid any unsightly bulges in the wrong places!

 Okay, that’s enough from me! Thanks to Margot for letting me loose on her blog!  Please follow our baking adventures on Twitter – @blackbirdbread

To Mr B – I salute you and your fabulous baking skills.  I am delighted that you agreed to share your tips!  To you dear Reader, DO follow Blackbird on Twitter or check out his blog and if you live in Twickenham, what are you waiting for…place your order!  I am completely indebted to Mr Blackbird and am thrilled to have made his acquaintance.  I never truly believed that I would ever be able to pull off No.17  Bake a decent loaf.  However, following these fundamentals, armed with a baking stone and trying not to become too complacement, this townie is turning country baker, producing her own daily bread with a little help from Poppy and Primrose of course!  Hoorah!

Margot's humble cottage loaf!

‘Proving’ to be a hit…. Sorry, couldn’t resist the baking pun!

 

Walk on the wild side

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robin

Could this be Cock Robin?

Wildlife is not usually something that I boast about in our suburban garden but this week we seem to have taken a leaf out of Lou Reed’s songbook.  Foxes scampering along the back wall, sightings of squirrels and then something which has had the girls and I glued to the window for days now.  On a grey and dismal January day, Primrose, Poppy and I whooped with delight at the darting flashes of crimson which we spied as we consumed our porridgey breakfast at the kitchen table.  A sweet little pair of robins seem to be building a nest in Jerry’s shed.  When I say ‘shed’, it could more accurately be described as a garden cupboard – far too close to the house, has to be opened by jimmying a booted foot towards the sky and has a dodgy door with panels which fall forward suddenly and forcefully, giving a mild concussion if one is not wise to their evil plan.  One might say that it was a perfect nesting place for our red breasted lovebirds, not least because Jerry uses it but once a year when he makes us all clear the garden ready for firing up his barbecue.  Something which he hasn’t done in at least 2 years I might add.  However, dear Reader, I am sure you can imagine that Jerry was none to pleased to hear about our feathered friends’ choice of shelter.  The phrase “It’s my shed.  They should find their own”, was used and comparisons were drawn with recent evictions at Dale Farm.  To be honest (and I must confess to never having shown much interest in birds other than as food) the whole thing has been rather fascinating.  Primrose has taken to sketching them and Poppy, SW London’s mini Dr Doolittle, stands by the window, talking away and the dear little birds seem to obligingly tweet back.  I wonder if she has let them know that her father would rather that they moved on?..  We now have a makeshift hide (Primrose has erected a mini tent by the door) for ‘RobinWatch’ and we observe as both Mr and Mrs R take turns sitting on the back door handle, chirping away and showing us their nesting materials!  After rather a hot debate with both Jerry and my dear Mamma, I delved into some research on how to identify male from female.  I was ‘surprised’ (and smug as I was almost entirely sure I was right in the first place!) to find out that both Mr and Mrs have a vibrant red breast and according to the RSPB, are almost identical.  There was some talk of V shaped breasts for females and U shapes for males but I gave up in the end as the website kept churning out irritating birdcalls.  Ooh with all the birdwatching shenanigans, dear Reader, I felt like Michaela Strachan poised to turn to camera and utter commentary in a hushed whisper as Primrose, Poppy and I waited for the daily to-ing and fro-ing from the shed to begin every morning.  I half imagined our little cottage garden appearing on ‘SpringWatch’ with Chris Packham’s lispy banter in the background and me in the foreground, sporting my best kaftan……..”and now we turn to a little corner of SW London where Margot, our rather glamourous naturalist, awaits ready to talk us through the daily habits of a pair of robins nesting in her outdoor cupboard, sometimes known as a shed”….  (Dear Reader, as I wrote naturalist, I had to just double check that I wasn’t accidentally misrepresenting myself as one of those nudist fellows.  Apparently, they go by the name of ‘naturists’.  Very confusing.  One can see how an unsuspecting birdwatcher might become entangled in a rather embarrassing scandal if they got that one wrong on the way to a nature reserve).

Primrose's observational drawing - rather good I think!

Primrose’s observational drawing – rather good I think!

Bitten by the birdwatching bug, I took Primrose and Poppy on a little jaunt to the London Wetlands Centre.  A Twitchers’ haven – I am reliably informed.  This was quickly evidenced by sightings of several anorak types with binoculars, consulting notebooks and wearing those stomping Gore-tex boots.  Far too much breathable fabric for my liking.  The river and reedbeds did not disappoint, however.  I cannot think of the last time I experienced such tranquility outside of the countryside.  Not one single distinguishable sound could be detected that would give away the hubbub of daily grind in the Big Smoke from the other side of the river bank.  Primrose, Poppy and I sat in a hide, mesmerised and rendered silent.  A rarity for all three of us I can assure you, dear Reader.  Kenneth Grahame’s  The Wind in the Willows came to mind and I was overcome with the memory of many meandering river walks that were the reason Jerry and I moved to this little corner of suburbia in the first place some 6 years ago.

“By the side of the river he trotted as one trots, when very small, by the side of a man who holds one spell-bound by exciting stories; and when tired at last, he sat on the bank, while the river still chattered on to him, a babbling procession of the best stories in the world, sent from the heart of the earth to be told at last to the insatiable sea.” (The Wind in the Willows, Chp 1 by Kenneth Grahame)

Those birds must be in heaven!

A tiny slice of quiet in a corner of SW London – who would have thought it?

Primrose ended the silence first with “You promised me a hot chocolate, Mummy”, which of course I had (Primrose is never wrong.  Wonder where she gets that from?), so off we trotted.  Mole and Ratty were not to be found bobbing along the bank but we did manage to catch a glimpse of a family of otters who have a permanent ‘holt’ at the Wetlands Centre.

Messing about on the river...

Messing about on the river…

On the way home, Primrose and I speculated about creatures we might encounter in our new country garden.  Primrose is desperate to meet her first ‘hedgepig’ and I have never seen a badger.  Poppy delights in all manner of wildlife from a ‘squiggle’ to a ‘tweet’ and will, no doubt, find some way of communing with anything that lives at the bottom of the garden!  For now though, we must all be content with watching the robins and their resplendent vermillion.  Hating to disappoint my darling girls, I simply couldn’t resist creating a spiky friend for Primrose and Poppy at suppertime.  Do not worry dear Reader, I do know how to identify a real hedgehog but everyone knows that the only hedgehogs around these parts look like this!

hedgehog

Mango anyone?

Margot’s New Year’s resolutions

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Not burning the candle at both ends.....

Not burning the candle at both ends…..

Happy New Year to you dear Reader!  Rather unlike the whizz bang kaleidoscope of colour that was the spectacular fireworks display in London, 2013 limped in with a little whimper for dear Jerry and I.  Our New Year jaunt to Tom and Barbara’s ended with illness and midnight arrived with all of us (plus 3 small babes) in bed asleep with various ailments.  Sadly, on this occasion, I can’t even blame the sloe gin fizzes for my lack of stamina!  Jerry agreed that maybe with 2 children in tow, we were just getting too old to ring in the New Year with the same alacrity as seen in previous years.  I spent the wee small hours of 2013 trying to console a snotty and very teary Poppy before lying awake thinking of how much I had to get on with this year!  Find job, sell house, up sticks and move to rural idyll……..

In true Margot style, I thought that the only way to prepare myself for all this change was to write a list.  A list of things to do in 2013…resolutions of sorts.   I found the perfect starting point for the forthcoming year.  Thank you dear Country Life!  Yet again, you saved my bacon, so to speak!  Originally published as Country Life’s pick of essential skills for our nation’s youth, the full list of Country Life’s 39 steps to a Better Life can be found here.  Indeed, I was very surprised to see that I had accomplished a few already!  Although, I am not sure I would call my completion of no.24 a 10 shot rally…more Margot struggling to keep a volley going!  Here are some of the rejects which didn’t make it onto my list of 2013 to-dos!

1. Cook three different dinner party menus (Margot’s weekly kitchen rituals are all about dinner parties – so this one is too easy peasy to add to the list)
3. Play a musical instrument, even if it’s just the tom-toms or a mouth organ (I can strike this one off as I can tinkle the ivories in a passable fashion and I did once play the cello reasonably well)
6. Talk about five classics of English literature with authority and passion (I could bore you to death, dear Reader, with my love of Milton’s Paradise Lost, Forster’s Howards End, Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden, Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway and of course, almost anything by Jilly Cooper…)
12. Taste the difference between Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay and know how to mix a mojito or margarita (This formed part of Margot’s basic training years ago)
17. Sail a boat across the Solent (Accomplished with several layers of sailing gear and the help of Jerry’s family)
19. Tell the difference between Gothic, Baroque and Palladian architecture  (Thank you National Trust.  Without you, I might have had to delve into Architecture for Dummies)
24. Sustain a 10-shot rally at tennis (as I said more terror at missing a shot than rally)
26. Perform three good card tricks (I’m not sure cheating at Gin Rummy should count for this)
30. Uncork and pour a bottle of Champagne (Oh dear Reader, if one hasn’t managed this one by 32, then one hasn’t lived)!
32. Amuse small children for at least an hour with magic tricks and storytelling  (That is precisely what I went into teaching to do)

After much debating, some help from Jerry and taking into account the splendid advice from Country Life, here is Margot’s top 20 list of things to do in 2013:

One of Margot's top views for 2013!

One of Margot’s top views for 2013!

  1. Ride a horse
  2. Grow my own vegetables from seed and dig a vegetable garden from scratch
  3. Identify a hawthorn from a hazel and try not to poison the family when selecting edible flowers/plants using my new River Cottage Hedgerow book
  4. Learn how to handle a shotgun, shoot a clay, skin a rabbit and go hunting with hawks
  5. Cycle 5 miles along a river, repair a bicycle puncture and fix the chain (might help to learn how to ride a bicycle FIRST!  Yes, I really can’t ride a bicycle…)
  6. Attempt basic DIY skills such as putting up a shelf and changing a plug
  7. Learn how to light an AGA and cook on it
  8. Build a bonfire
  9. Use sewing machine to make a dress
  10. Go glamping with Poppy and Primrose
  11. Walk MY OWN dog
  12. Attend a henkeeping course
  13. Make my own cheese
  14. Brew a pint of homemade beer with Jerry (Jerry’s secret desire is to run his own micro brewery)
  15. Meet a real farmer
  16. Catch a fish
  17. Bake a decent loaf of bread (I am now armed with a very good recipe from dear Mr Blackbird of Blackbird Bread)
  18. Knit a tea cosy
  19. Procure a stylish country hat
  20. FINALLY move into my own farmhouse complete with Aga, log fires, beams (and prerequisite spiders), HUGE garden and views of open fields.

Jerry wouldn’t let me add: ’21. Rear pigs and make my own bacon’.  Disappointing.  I thought that I might be quite good at keeping livestock.  I had also mentioned chickens and ducks – both of which were given the big veto by Jerry.  Spoilsport.  In the meantime, I have already made a start on the list….dear Mamma bought me a knitting kit for children aged 8 years and up.  Well dear Reader, I had to start somewhere……

knitting

Tea cosy anyone?

Margot’s Twelve Days of Christmas

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Look at that darling little boot!

Look at the darling little boot!

On the first day of Christmas, my dear Jerry gave to me……some truly wonderful presents to kit me out for the countryside in 2013: the most delicious cashmere welly socks complete with tiny silver welly, an AMAZING box set of River Cottage handbooks and a very uncamouflaged green and white spotty bag from Cath Kidston!  Dear Reader, I can assure that I was most certainly one of the nine ladies dancing!  Presents done and dusted by 7:30am!  That’s what I call efficient or rather very impatient!  We even managed to make the wonderful nativity service where Primrose stood angelic as one of the angels by a real baby ‘Jesus’ whilst Poppy screamed for most of the service and could only be silenced by a packet of rice cakes.  Crib service completed, we trudged off on our Christmas travels with our two little ‘angels’ who had been awake since 4:47am, desperate to see what St Nicholas had left under the tree.  Even industrial amounts of coffee could not keep me awake on Christmas morning and there was rain of biblical proportions sloshing down as we left the Big Smoke, ruining my straightened hair and making me question whether or not the Mayans might have been on to something!Journey finally at an end, we turned our attentions to the business of Christmas lunch.  Day one of the Twelve Days of Christmas and  not a partridge in sight.  However, I did try my first ‘turducken’.  Yes that’s right, a ‘turducken’ (turkey, duck and chicken), also known as a three bird roast.  A modern take on an olden day feasting dish when one served a bird in a bird in a bird (you get the idea) all neatly packaged up inside a swan, feathers, beak et al.  I can see where jeggings might have evolved from.  They must be the modern day equivalent of hose!  Thank goodness we only had 2 days of feasting to get through rather than the full Twelve Days of Christmas.  I am not sure I could have managed the swan roast or the 12 pies for a lucky 12 months that nursery rhyme Jack Horner is alleged to have consumed!

Boxing Day arrived with its post Christmas lunch slump and mad sale spendathons.  Traditionally the feast of St Stephen (the patron saint of horses), farmers and horse owners alike used to take their horses to their country parishes to be blessed.  It is also well known as the biggest day in the hunting calendar.  The Boxing Day hunt – a time honoured country Christmas tradition which is so rarely cheered in villages these days.  Dear Minty took her little babe to his inaugural Boxing Day hunt to watch riders and hounds depart from a sleepy village in Gloucestershire for the frost-covered fences and hedges of the surrounding countryside.  If Minty’s husband has anything to do with it, that dear little boy will be riding, hunting, shooting and fishing before he even takes his first steps.  I applaude that sentiment entirely!  No local hunts around our parts so I made do with a little dress with horse and hound pattern!  Embarking on the second day of our gluttonous feasting, I started to feel like the Vicar of Dibley in the episode where she is invited to all the villagers’ Christmas lunches.  I wasn’t sure how much more I could fit in and wished I had saved a pair of maternity jeans!  Following a considerably over indulgent lunch, I fell into a dream of turtledoves and dovecotes on my country estate and was woken somewhere around 2am by the ‘twit twoo’ of a pair of owls .  I say owls…..it could merely have been the whistling of darling Jerry’s drunken snoring.  Difficult to tell….

Hunting horns at the ready!

Hunting horns at the ready!

Well dear Reader, day three of Margot’s Twelve Days of Christmas and all was looking rosy as we finally returned to the familiar surroundings of our dear little cottage.  Presents unpacked, fire lit and pyjamas on, I was delighted to be back.  I will admit to be being a very poor house guest.  I like to be in my own home.  Tragic as that sounds.  I also felt a little twinge of loyalty to the cottage as after all, this will be the last Christmas spent in its tiny embrace.  Three French hens were not on offer….you can see I was not fully prepared for the full twelve days at all…BUT Primrose and I did make a rather charming bereted French snowman (if I do say so myself) for the top of my Christmas cake this year.  Rustique.

C'est chic non?!

C’est chic, non?!

As for the rest of the Twelve Days of Christmas, not really sure how I am going to manage four colly birds (apparently these are blackbirds, who would have thought?), five gold rings (oh God nothing Olympic related I promise), six geese-a-laying (might have to make do with chickens for this one and book myself on a hen-keeping course), seven swans-a-swimming (could a few trips to The Swan pub count?), eight maids-a-milking (dairy farm, perhaps?).  Still it all looks promising for a good old New Year/early Twelfth Night shindig.  A little visit to see Tom and Barbara in the offing and no doubt, I shall definitely see at least one of the ten lords a leaping on New Year’s Eve (can’t wait to see Tom strutting his stuff with his energetic version of Britney’s Toxic) and might even manage to do some piping for the eleven pipers piping.  As for the drummers, dearest Poppy got a drum from Father Christmas so when New Year’s Day comes and inevitably, Jerry and I have sore heads, it will feel like twelve drummers drumming.  Might have to hide that one…… Here’s to 2013 and Margot FINALLY making it to the countryside.  Happy New Year to you, Dear Reader!

Wine and a little ‘Wes Hael’!

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Wine! Wassailing to follow...

Wine! Wassailing to follow…

I write this week’s installment, Dear Reader, with a slightly (understatement of the year) sore head.  Christmas party season arrived and Margot’s Christmas simply wouldn’t be complete without a little glug of wine or two.  In the case of Margot’s more recent past, rather a few too many gin fizzes and a smoking bishop!  More on that in a mo….. This year, I threw in some wassailing for good measure too!  An old custom associated with Christmas and in particular Twelfth Night, wassailing has been around since the 15th century.  ‘Wes Hael’ (‘be well’ or ‘be healthy’ in Anglo Saxon I believe) is a way of wishing good health to family and friends.  Definitely something Margot would be interested  in at this time of year!  It is also an ancient ritual that includes a good old shout at some trees (usually apple trees to be a touch more precise).  It was believed that wassailing the trees in one’s orchard thanked the trees for the year’s crop and ensured a bountiful crop for the year to come.  A ceremonial slosh of mulled cider was poured on to the roots of the tree and a wassailing song was sung to keep evil spirits from harming the tree until a good harvest was brought in the following year. In the spirit of old things country, I did my bit and wassailed my ‘orchard’ of 1 pear, 1 cherry (this year’s crop was used in a new gin recipe) and 1 fig tree.  I donned a green scarf (a nod to the Greene man, usually the master of wassailing ceremonies) and enjoyed a little sing song of a few Cole Porter numbers.  Goodness only knows what the neighbours thought of the crazy woman singing in the garden, dousing a libation of sloe gin fizz on a piddly tree with a green scarf over her head (it was raining, Dear Reader, and I had just had my hair blow dried).  Let’s hope I get a good crop of cherries and pears next year.  I fancy trying my hand at making some perry!  I love the thought that all over  the cider making countiesof England, country folk are still keeping this amazing tradition alive!  I shall continue to do my bit and ‘wassail’ throughout the 12 days of Christmas…what a fabulous excuse for a little tipple!  If you should manage a little wassailing of your own, do have a go at one of my sloe gin fizzes.  Wassailing won’t seem silly at all once you have had a few of these!

Sloe Gin Fizz

1 part sloe gin (homemade of course)

3 parts Prosecco or English Sparkling wine (no need to use your best Bolly for this one)

a handful of pomegranate seeds

Gin in first, then top up with fizz.  Sprinkle in the seeds.  Delish!

or perhaps an old fashioned take on Mulled Wine found in Anne Cobbett’s The English Housekeeper (1842)

‘Boil cinnamon, grated nutmeg, cloves or mace in a quarter of a pint of water.  Add a pint of port and some sugar to taste.’ Boil for a few minutes.

Until Christmas Day itself, I have imposed prohibition on myself as I imbibed rather a lot with some dear festive chums, Holly and Ivy.  It must have been a good party as my head still hurts days later.  Apparently, the hostess was on top form dishing out cocktails, donning a fur coat, having a little dance before an awful incident with the kitchen sink, going up to bed (very worse for wear) leaving guests to fend for themselves, blow out candles, turn off lights etc before letting themselves out……. Most certainly NOT Margot’s finest hour I don’t mind telling you, Dear Reader!  Dearest Holly and lovely Ivy, a BIG thank you to you for saving the cottage from fire and for very generously forgiving a drunken old Christmas bird for seriously bad hostessing!  I promise to be the last man standing on our next ‘Wes Hael’ jaunt.  In the meantime dear Reader, I shall stick to a festive cuppa until my aching head subsides!  Have a wonderfully fabulous Christmas and ‘Wes Hael’ to all of you and yours!

Dear Barbara's festive pot - I just couldn't resist!

Dear Barbara’s festive pot – exceptionally restorative!