21 May 2012

GUEST BLOG: Rising to the challenge


By guest blogger SIOBHAN KELLY

Saturday morning (19 May) bought together a group of 12 at Chorlton High School to make naan breads and a loaf, as part of our latest season of paid cookery sessions (see the CGF website for details of the next classes you can sign up for). 

We started off with an interesting brief from Rob of what the session would consist of and then we were straight into mixing yeast, flour and water to make the dough. Top tip from Rob – always add too much water rather than too much flour when making dough. The first is easy to rectify and the latter nearly impossible to change in the dough-making process.

While the dough was rising in the warm grill area of the cooker, heated only from the oven below, it was time to begin making the naan. Today, Rob had bought some amazing looking garlic from the Unicorn Grocery which was larger than life and such beautiful colours. I have never seen such large cloves. Fun was had chopping these and adding salt to make a fresh garlic paste. For the naan making, the group split into pairs to work so that there was not a “tsunami of naans” at the end of the session – an amusing bit of visualisation there Rob which made me laugh. Yoghurt was heated up in a pan ready to add to the flour mix, then we were busy kneading the dough ready to roll out before frying in a pan.

Wonderful smells of baking bread and fried naans filled the air, and I found myself getting very hungry indeed! This was a great session, which ran really smoothly due to the help and hard work of our two lovely volunteers.



See our Facebook page for more pictures from this session. Click here to be redirected.

Rob will be running another bread-making session on Saturday 30 June, when he'll be sharing the secrets of fabulous focaccia. Details of how to book can be found on our website. And if you fancy treating your sweet tooth, we have a cake-baking session on the evening of Tuesday 12 June, with Erika from Black Cat Cakery; details here.

No comments:

Post a Comment