The Bloomer
Ingredients:
500g strong white flour
40 ml olive oil
1 7g sachet of Instant Yeast that feels faintly like cheating
10g of salt measured on scales that are used to telling the difference between one kilo and six on a good day
360 ml water
Feeling of boundless confidence
Recently purchased video game series (I use the Prince of Persia games in my recipe but it's really a matter of personal choice)
Process:
1. Put the flour into a bowl. Put the salt and yeast in the bowl on different sides so the salt doesn't kill the yeast. Feel faint glow of professional competence. Treasure that, dear reader. You will not feel it again.
2. Add the olive oil. Note that the yeast is brown, not a mustardy yellow. Ponder why you expected it to be yellow.
3. Add three quarters of the water. Using one of your hands in a claw shape, because the book tells you to make a claw shape even though it feels a bit silly, begin to mix the water into the flour and salt.
4. Worry that when you added the water you washed all the salt directly into the yeast and ruined everything. There is no way of knowing. Press on regardless and pretend you are treating this as a fun culinary experiment instead of as evidence that you are a good and capable person.
5. Mix it in until everything looks a bit dry and isn't quite coming together.
6. Mix in a little more water. Not that much. Actually that seems okay. Phew.
7. Ask yourself; does this need more water?
8. Decide it really looks like it needs more water.
9. Add remaining water oh FUCK it's gone really sticky
10. Check the book. The book says that sticky is okay so long as it's not soggy. Nice.
11. Ponder the difference between soggy and sticky.
12. Decide bread is just really really sticky.
13. Remember the pasta debacle. Decide to press on regardless.
14. Now it's time to knead the dough! Try to follow the instructions in your book.
15. Try to fold the dough.
16. Really try.
17. Perform kneading action as learned from seeing people on television and in films knead dough.
18. Wonder, idly, what films you learned this from. Worry that it was Ghost and that you are subliminally trying to make a pot.
19. Further kneading.
20. The dough ought to come smooth after 5-10 minutes, longer if you are a beginner. Continue for 20 minutes.
21. Maybe it WAS soggy.
22. Wait until it looks pretty good and is feeling less sticky and more stretchy. Check the book to see if the dough looks right.
23. That looks amazing. Yours will not look like that. Put it in a box to rise anyway; it ought to take between 1 1/2 and 3 hours, and should triple in size.
24. Watch a little TV and have dinner. Consider that Jonathan Creek has really nice shoes.
25. After 1 1/2 hours, check on dough. It will not look very much bigger at all. Bah.
26. Play Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.
27. It's still really good!
28. Scale the tower of dawn in a safe and secure fashion.
29. Complete Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.
30. Load Prince of Persia: Warrior Within.
31. Suffer severe mood whiplash. How were these games even developed by the same company? Wonder if OH HELL MY BREAD
32. Your bread should now have been rising for about 4 or 5 hours.
33. It'll probably be okay.
34. Reshape your dough into the form of a lumpy loaf of bread. Consider the lumps. Shrug.
35. Leave bread to rise for a further hour. Really.
36. Pre-heat oven to 220 degrees. Put a pan in the bottom.
37. Try to play Prince of Persia: Warrior Within until bread finishes its second rise. It is not very much fun. Bah.
38. Using your sharpest knife, cut lines in the top of the dough so it will rise and bake properly. Pretty professional.
39. Realise your knife is not all that sharp.
40. Sharpest thing in the house is a straight razor. Seriously consider it.
41. Decide it is a little too metal to make bread with a straight razor. Persist with knife.
42. Regret your decision. I prefer to regret things in the traditional Italian way, with a glass of red wine and a slow, broken stare to the right of camera, but the Belgian and French methods work equally well.
43. Put the bread in the oven. Put boiling water in the hot tray; the steam will create a lovely glaze on the top of the loaf as it bakes.
44. OH GOD STEAM
45. Hyperboiling water is a serious safety hazard. Stand well back and recheck your recipe book; confirm that the water should just have been from the cold tap.
46. Close the oven door with a broom handle.
47. Go into the front room and continue regret for 25 minutes, or half a bottle.
48. Lower the temperature of the oven to 200 degrees Celsius, and risk looking in the glass.
49. Against all the odds, your bread will look like real bread. Take that, baking conglomerates! Experience heady rush of confidence.
50. Wait ten minutes and remove the bread from the oven. It will look pretty good. Hold the loaf in a tea towel and tap the bottom to see if it sounds hollow.
51. It does! You have achieved bread! Leave it to cool completely overnight, since it is now almost midnight.
52. Eat the bread. It's pretty good.
53. Declare that you will attempt a savoury brioche couronne tomorrow.
54. On second thought, realise the bread was a little bit chewy.
55. Do not attempt the brioche.
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