These really are the heaviest, hardest, most concrete like bricks of bread I've ever made, and I include in that summary all the crumbly pasty doughs of my early youth, before I learned about flour and baker's percentages.
What went wrong? Nothing really. The flour was a white bread flour, from Lidl admittedly but I've used it before with good results. The dough mixed up fine in the Santos, I didn't forget the salt and the yeast, which had received the blame, was almost certainly alive when I added it to the mix, I've proved this by starting another batch with some of its brethren. All fine.
But the water and the kitchen were a bit cold, I wasn't really paying attention, doing a couple of other things at the same time (which it pains me to admit are nearly as unsuccessful) and I've lost my cooking mojo. Just recently, I couldn't care less.
It's pervading my entire life and although I can coast, keep my fingers crossed and be forgiving of my failures really it's not a healthy state of mind. It shows up in everything I do or rather don't do, no painting, no gardening, no blogging. Something has to change so I don't promise anything but I'm going to try harder off screen and hope it boils over into the webbysphere. Fingers crossed.
6 comments:
I'm sure the mojo will come back and the feeling will pass - it always does eventually... I think it's the shorter days, less light, cooler evenings.... Sending you positive vibes!
You can always use it for hand-to-hand combat or building an extension ;-)
I think it's fairly normal to go through phases like this...just don't worry too much about it.
I'm sure the dense bread can be put to some wonderfully ingenious use...
mrs cat - i am in the same place with blogging but i am trying to get back there. i think this time of year is very dark in many ways. it helps up appreciate the spring!
I know how you feel - we are now past the shortest day of the year so things should start looking brighter literally and I hope in all ways for you too. You need a couple of mojo boosting things to make that no matter what you do will still taste fab. A friend of mine recently showed me how to make brick parcels (they look like samosas) the brick pastries can be found in most French supermarkets in the south as they come from North Africa. Make a filling (perfect for vegans - my favourite so far was boiled potatoes mashed with coconut chutney and some Indian spices) wrap and then bake for 10 mins. I haven't managed to do a post about them yet as I made them (3 batches) when we had friends round and we scoffed the lot before I can go and find my camera so I am looking forward to making a smaller batched and writing up the recipe and of course scoffing them myself.
All the best or 2010 and thanks again for helping me move my blog content. I've moved Mas du Diable completely now.
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