6. February 2014 04:02 by Rene Pallesen | 0 Comments
At the moment I am going through a phase where I Loooveee baking bread.
There is something really satisfying about working with something that is so diverse and alive. And there is nothing like eating a freshly baked bread with a nice crust.
So far I have found a couple of recipes I really like...one of them is this walnut and fig bread.
On the weekend I made it for the family dinner and they wanted the recipe.
- 400g white flour into a bowl
- Add 100g of wholemeal flour
- Add 10g of sea salt flakes
- Add 5g of dry yeast into the bowl
- Add 335ml of water
- Mix it all together using your hand
- Kneed it by stretching it out on a table and then roll it up...do this 3-6 times
- flatten the bread to a thickness of about 15mm and then place walnuts and chopped figs on top. Roll up the bread with the walnuts and figs inside.
- Stretch the bread another couple of time and roll it up until the walnuts and figs are mixed into the bread.
- Put the bread in a bowl and cover it with glad wrap (or better yet, just leave it on the table and cover it with the bowl) for one hour...knock back the bread every 20 minutes (3 times in total).
- Leave the bread for another one hour (without knocking it back). After 30 minutes (30 minutes prior to baking) start preheating the oven with a baking/pizza stone at 250 degrees. Also put a small metal tray in the oven (for the ice cubes)
- Add a bit of semolina (or flour) to the baking stone and to the top of the bread to avoid it sticking.
- Place the bread on the baking stone and make a couple of cuts to the top of the dough.
- Add 3-4 ice cubes to the metal tray
- Close the oven and turn down the temperature to 200 degrees immediately.
- Bake for 30 minutes and remove from the oven.
23. January 2014 12:39
by Rene Pallesen
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23. January 2014 12:28
by Rene Pallesen
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Last weekend we made an overnight trip to the Hunter Valley a couple of hours drive north of Sydney.
The main reason was to see the lights in the Hunter Valley Garden (see separate post), but also to go and taste some wine and generally have a good time.
Pretty soon after we arrived the girls were distracted by the chocolate and cheese places.
We did however go to a couple of places for wine tasting.
We also had some really nice food up there. I was especially impressed by a really nice gnocchi salad I had....it was yummi.
Outside it was really hot...like 39 degrees in the shade. There were a couple of horses relaxing under a couple of trees.
We decided an alternative approach of checking into our hotel and jump in the pool to cool off.
In the evening we went to the light show and on the following day we just did a number of wineries before heading back to Sydney.
17. January 2014 12:11
by Rene Pallesen
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On the weekend we did some ten pin bowling with the family.
Kim had managed to secure some cheap tickets so it was great to play against the family.
We had one lane for the kids (with rails) and one lane for the adults.
I had a bad start and was behind much of the game, but my luck eventually caught up and I started playing a good game.
Afterwards we had a bit of a play in the games arcade
Aiden was absolutely terrified of the big scary bear (I can see why).
The kids also tried to figure out what this machine was for:
I love some of the old 50's style decor.
