labouring on labour day

it's been such a long, tiring, but magical day! this is so long it could be a book.

chapter one: white bread

i took out nigella's recipe for white bread and decided to make it today. but i like the way bertinet manipulates us into loving home-made bread. he writes that a shop-bought loaf typically contains wheat flour, water, yeast, wheat protein, salt, vinegar, dextrose, soya flour, vegetable fat, emulsifier E472e, flour treatment agent E300 and preservative calcium propionate; a home-made loaf contains flour, water, yeast and salt.
fine, so i used the mixer to knead the initial part, which is the hardest i think. but that's because i needed a lot of time! but i took it out after five minutes of machine-kneading to do it manually for a good half hour, from wet and sticky into smooth dough.
giving the dough it's first rise. this time, it didn't swell as quickly as the dough for my cinnamon buns did. that's because the cinnamon buns dough had a crazy amount of yeast. today my sister was complaining of the stink that the yeast created, but i simply didn't/couldn't smell it; maybe i was just used to it after working the dough for half an hour.
dividing the dough and shaping it into balls. you must be thinking why this time i have photos even though my hands were tied. well, there's always something called a 'sister'.
leaving the shaped dough in the loaf pan for the second rise, followed by scoring. this was so fun, though i was still learning how to use the scoring blade. anyhow, i think i didn't knead long enough, because the dough was still relatively sticky and resistant to cutting, so my checkered scoring was not impressive. i just settled with three slashes on the other dough.
on hindsight, i also think that i didn't leave enough time for the rising, because the oven spring was not pronounced. and the resulting bread had quite a dense crumb, not airy and light, though at the moment i first sliced it, i thought it was so perfect.
and it was quite perfect, other than the crumb thing. appearance-wise, i think it would be better if i had scored deeper into the dough. but the taste was quite good, though a bit salty (and i had already halved the amount of salt nigella wanted). i liked the crustiness of the crust too, and i cannot tell you how satisfying it is to work three hours on a loaf and finally get to break into it.

chapter two: the journey to a feast

i left one loaf at home, and took the other out. (the loaf at home was half-gone by the time i left house.) i was carrying a warm loaf of fragrant freshly-baked bread in a muji paper bag, rushing to orchard and finding out that the library was no longer there, going to kinokuniya to buy bertinet's books.

and then to jia en's house, where beejuan, clara and yiyan were already there. and we cooked.

chapter three: pain-au-chocolat pudding

each person had a different item to make for the dinner. i brought the home-baked bread, and baked a bread pudding at jia en's house itself.
another nigella recipe. two nigella recipes in a day! this mise en place took really long because the kitchen was so crowded. next time, my house will have a big kitchen with a lot of walking and working space!
the mixture of boiled cream and tempered yolks, soaking bread, and chocolate chunks. (i kind of cheated. the recipe is for pain-au-chocolat, the chocolate croissant things, but i simply used white bread, and added chocolate pieces.) amazingly, jia en's baking tray was just the right size.
during baking the cream boiled and rose so spectacularly. but i took it out a bit too early =( you will see what was not right with it later.

chapter four: cooking

i'll just let the photos do the talking here. in short, the cooking was fun and very fulfilling.
this is supposed to make it look like the cooking process is very fun, like all cooking books do. i especially like the photos in nigella's feast, which is all about food that celebrates life. not just about the end product - no, not just about what we eat - but about how we eat, and how we make what we eat.

chapter five: feast

sliced loaf. you can see the density of the crumb here. it's not puffed with air spaces, as with artisan breads from outside. nevertheless, it is tasty, and is screaming 'home-baked' at you.
this is the tomato concoction thing that clara worked on. she had to peel onions, mash tomatoes and garlic, boil everything and cook pasta in it. and it was so nice and filling; a meal by itself!
this is the baked dory in cream sauce with cheddar that beejuan did, and mushrooms added last minute. tsk. and it was very nice too! see, dory can be just as nice as salmon, minus the cost.
this is the fruit salad that jia en and yiyan tossed up. with mangoes, apples, passionfruit, nata de coco, and kiwis! needed some red though, but complements clara's tomato soup.
this is the whole table of food laid out in it's entire glory. it was truly a hearty dinner. a lot of fun cooking, a lot of food. but more is better than less; it implies abundance, not redundance. and the average cost came out quite, quite cheap. food which tastes good enough compared to outside food, and which is healthy save for the lack of greens (but we had fruits), all for only $12 each!

and now, for the not-so-perfect pudding. i have half the mind to censor this photo because it is so offensive to my culinary image. but this is just to show you why you should really let the pudding set more before taking it out of the oven. (i took it out when it still had quite a considerable wobble.)
the proof of the pudding is in the eating. this is proof of an undercooked pudding. omg this was quite 可惜, because i think the pudding tasted quite nice, just that it was five minutes away from being completely set! the result? a half-set pudding that breaks into small pieces, looking like a mashed chawanmushi. still, i think it's amazing how boiled cream with yolks can start from liquid and set into a pudding.

chapter six: of more things to come

two nigella recipes in a day; two semi-successes! ivan is pleased. stupid weiyang didn't want to come for the dinner. anyhow, i'm looking forward to baking more bread, some muffins, and shortbread this week!