Croissants, bread, life, etc

Yesterday I made croissants again.  They do seem to be slowly improving.  In the pictures above, the gorgeous croissant on the right with the perfect honeycomb structure is the shop-bought version. The series of pictures on the left are mine - the one at the top being yesterday's.

It's all been about trying to get bigger and more evenly spaced air holes in the crumb.  I made a lot of croissants like the one at the bottom left.  They were always a bit moist, so I tried reducing the hydration and adding butter to the actual dough (rather than between the layers of dough), and got the result second from the bottom.  Then something - not sure what - went a bit wrong and I got the flattened version second from the top.  Working on the basis that the added butter was preventing the formation of a strong gluten network and therefore allowing it to collapse slightly, I decreased the amount of butter and got the result at the top left.  It doesn't look too bad to me.  Apparently, I'm still smooshing some of the layers together, and a longer proving time may help.  I also need to work on getting a crisper crust.

The next attempt will have to wait for a little while however.  I seem to be in the middle of a bit of a work crisis.  I have been pot washing at two restaurants (both owned by the same person) and it was all going relatively smoothly until one of the other kps went away on holiday.  Part of the reason I was taken on in the first place was to cover holidays, but because I'm working in two places, I ended up double-booked.  It's been a real headache to sort out.  One of the places was quite relaxed and flexible about it, the other not so much.  Either way though, I feel like I've been doing a half-arsed job for everybody - including the art & craft centre - where everyone has to be out of the building quickly on a Wednesday so I can rush off to a washing-up shift.  Unsurprisingly, nothing quite goes right under this kind of pressure.

So this week, I gave notice at one of the restaurants - the second job I took on (and the 'not quite so relaxed' one).  It doesn't feel right letting people down, but I feel like I need to make sure I'm honouring my original commitments first and foremost.  There are other reasons too.  If everything goes to plan, I'm starting my course in September. so I'll need time to study for that.  I also have the big Kensington bear fairs - one in September, and one in February - which I need to work towards.  I haven't made anything in a long time: I could really do with clawing back some time to sew bears.

As a result of trying to juggle shifts and make everything fit, I've ended up with five consecutive days of double shifts this week(!)  I may be good for nothing by Sunday night.

Anyway, I'm taking full advantage of my day off today, by doing very little indeed.  We went out for breakfast and I've made a walnut cake from Margaret Costa's Four Seasons book.  I'm also trying a variation on Elizabeth David's bread recipe (and committing a cardinal sin by changing two things at the same time).  I'm increasing the percentage of wholemeal flour in the recipe, and upping the hydration, which is supposed to give you better bread.  I have to say it's looking rather sad and saggy at the moment, so I'm just pinning my hopes on a marvellous 'oven spring'.  Fingers crossed!

Last week...

Good morning!  It's been a very fattening week!  I've been sharing some of my food photos on Instagram, and since I don't have anything much to share on the bear-making front, I thought I'd share the food photos here too.  This first one is 'American-style' pancakes.

 As part of my job at the pub, I'm supposed to do the breakfast prep for the next day, including making pancake batter.  I was getting in a flap about it because it's a very different recipe from anything I've seen, and I don't know where anything is kept, or which bowls/spoons/whisks/whatever to use for what.  And I'm always in a flaming rush because there's usually so much washing up to do.  I wasn't getting anywhere asking people, so I ended up taking a covert phone photo of the recipe and bringing it home to practice (not sure I should be admitting that online).  It went alright - although I shall have forearms like Popeye after a couple of weeks of whisking egg whites by hand.  

The pancakes were good!  The blueberries didn't really work unfortunately.  I did try actually putting them in the batter, but because they're about twice the height of the pancake itself, when I turned the pancakes over, it sat on 'blueberry legs' as it were, and the base didn't brown as it should do.  Hmmm. Perhaps crush the blueberries first?  

Croissants are another recipe I've been struggling with - but I did get it right in the end.  My biggest mistake was starting from a recipe I found in a random old cook book, entitled Best Kept Secrets of the Women's Institute.  It turned out the recipes found therein really would have been better kept secret, because the croissant recipe didn't work at all!  After two attempts with that, I found a Paul Hollywood recipe via Google, and that does work, thankfully.

I also made florentines from Mary Berry's Ultimate Cake Book.  The recipe worked well, but I think I mucked it up again.  I used cooking chocolate, which wasn't very sweet, and the walnuts were slightly bitter (too old maybe?), so they weren't much of a 'sweet treat', as it were.  They did have chopped cherries and mixed peel in them too, but I didn't really notice them.  Next time maybe more fruit, a better choice of nuts, and slightly sweeter chocolate.

I tried making crisps - like they do at work.  I was convinced that they baked them, but I've found out subsequently that they deep fry them.  Anyway, when you bake them, it turns out they can either be pale and slightly chewy (which is quite nice when they're hot, but rather sad when they're cold), or crisp and much darker in colour (i.e. burnt).  I'm not sure either really works.  I might have another attempt, but I'm not sure it's really practical without a deep fat fryer.

It's difficult to know how to stay healthy, with all this baking.  I actually lost a bit of weight when I started my washing-up job - which was kind of nice - but it's all gone back on again now, and then some.  I have been jogging every so often, but its not always so easy when I've been working and my feet hurt.  I might dig my bicycle out again and try some cycling - a nice, British, sitting-down sport!

Anyway, I have been trying to compensate for all the baked goods, so I've eaten lots of these...

And finally, the sole result of my sewing efforts last week - the beginning of a new design.  I put this picture on Instagram, with what I hoped was an encouraging 'any guesses?' kind of comment, trying to get people to engage.  I got one response, from someone who told me it looked like a cat's arse. 

Note to self: never try to get people to engage on Instagram!