On the other hand, if you have read posts on this blog also in the last year, you might have noticed that I started to bake myself through a book, namely Secrets of a French baker. I haven't even finished that. In fact, I haven't done much for it, either. However, it's mostly bread in it and each recipe takes several hours to complete. It's good exercise, though, because a lot of kneading is involved.
It happens to be the case at times, that I like to join blog challenges. There is an ongoing one done by Lavender and Lovage and What Kate Baked. It's called Tea Time Treats. This month Lavender and Lovage is hosting and ... très bien ... the them is: Ooh La La! French Tarts, Cakes, Bakes and Pastries.
That is a perfect opportunity to let the show go on and do another recipe from that book: Fougasse. That is a kind of bread with a lovely filling. While the book is suggesting 7 different savoury fillings I decided to go for sweet one with chocolate spread and strawberry jam. I would have loved to add some fresh strawberries from the garden, but obviously it isn't the time yet.
Somehow I managed to do something wrong while preparing the bread, but I don't take the blame all on myself. The recipe - strangely - didn't state what to do with two ingredients and as I didn't bother to think about the recipe and simply went step by step, well, I didn't use the one tbs of soft butter and 3 tbs of milk powder.
I only did as follows:
Sift 225 g of strong baking flour and 225 g of spelt flour together with one and a half tsp of salt into a bowl. Then added a sachet of dried yeast and added bit by bit 240 ml of lukewarm water. I used a hand mixer to ... eh ... mix it. Then I used my hands to make a solid ball of dough. I left it on the kitchen work surface for 10 minutes and did something else.
I did my exercise by kneading the dough for over 15 minutes.
Then I carefully made a half flat half ball kind of object and placed the dough like this into the bowl, covered it with a wet kitchen towel and left it for 45 minutes. I went to do something else. Can't remember what!
I might have read something or just checked things on the computer, but who knows or cares.
I took the dough again and divided it into two balls, which I placed one a floured kitchen towel and covered with the other still wet kitchen towel and left the dough again for 25 minutes, while doing something else. In between I noticed I forgot to roll the bowls in coarse sugar. So I tried to fix it and continued to wait for the 25 minutes to end.
Now I started to heat up the oven to 220 °C. The two dough balls were flattened and stretched to two rectangular dough pieces.
On one side of each rectangular dough piece I smeared first some chocolate spread and then some strawberry jam. On the other half I made five incisions respectively. After that the sides with the cuts went over the chocolate jam and I tried my best to seal the bread. Then I transferred the breads to a baking tray and brushed them generously with some egg wash. Finally I sprinkled sugar on top and put the tray for 20 minutes into the oven.
They came out like this. I expected the incisions to be open, but maybe it was better that way so there was no chance for the filling to seep out at all cuts.
First of all I thought to do some arranging and get a nice picture. I put the breads on a wooden chopping board and started thinking ...
... but to no avail. I got no idea on how to do it. Therefore I simply cut them open ...
As you see ... eh ... you see quite some bread and not so much filling. Maybe flattening the dough a bit more and adding more filling would have been something. Nevertheless the fougasses tasted lovely ... maybe that would be something for a chocolate lover.
Well, I'm not promising now, that the show will go on and you find a bread here on my blog every week, but still I will be trying the remaining recipes from that book ... one day ... one day ... in the future.
Oh, well, I have to leave soon for the airport. Just managed to finish the post. Fine, I still have a few more minutes ...
I have never seen a sweet fougasse before so you might be the first to try but congratulations, it looks divine! By the look of things, the forgotten butter and milk powder musn't have been crucial ingredients after all. Well done!
ReplyDeleteThank you! Oh, great, I like trying things. The only downside is that you need to put quite some time into it.
DeleteA FABULOUS Tea Time Treats entry thanks Chris and so oooh la la too! C'est très formidable! Karen
ReplyDeleteMerci beaucoup, Karen!
DeleteHow weird that the recipe didn't say what to do with those two ingredients... I wonder if it's been revised somewhere on the internet? It looks like with a little tweaking, the whole thing would have turned out perfectly! And of course, if the flavor is good, that's what counts. ;)
ReplyDeleteAlso, if you like doing blog challenges, I'm having one this month - 30 Days of Random Acts of Kindness. Not food related, but fun none-the-less!
I juts checked, there is a similar recipe in the book with almost the same ingredients. There the butter and the milk powder go in in the first step just before you add the water.
DeleteWell a slice of this with un grand cafe crème would make the perfect French breakfast. Great originality Chris!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Jacqueline! Ah, a French breakfast would be nice ... best in France itself, but ... well as you said, it would work perfectly with this bread, too.
DeleteThat last photo looks just right to me Chris. And of course as a chocolate lover, I expect I'd be very happy to sit down with you and have a slice. It looks quite impressive -fantastique n'est ce pas?
ReplyDeleteThanks a lot, Choclette! That would be nice.
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