I wonder what I can do around little children like you

[venta]

Somewhat behind-hand here, as I'm supposed to be learning one new skill every month.

March was the month for attempting to learn a smidgeon about babies.

As far as I can tell, babies are a bit of a black art which you can only really learn by having care of one (and anecdotally, it's not so much a case of learning as of noticing having done things which didn't go disastrously wrong).

For my limited requirements, cuthbertcross and dr_bob nobly stepped up and invited me round for the day. My day's training involved actually spending some time with short people (something I've actually only very rarely done), hearing lots of things about the care and feeding of short people, and (as specifically requested) a handy demo of how to change a nappy. Later in the day, scarysaxon consented to allowing me to change her nappy after her afternoon nap, and very generously lay still and giggled instead of doing anything squirmy and difficult.

I'd like to say gosh, that was easy (the nappy-changing part was). But actually, I think what I mostly learned was that I really do have an immense admirataion for anyone willing to take on the huge job of bringing up a child. I think, so long as given careful instructions as to the correct food to apply to the baby, I could be safely left with one. Briefly.

But then I'd quite like to give it back, please.

Many, many thanks to CuthbertCross and Dr_Bob for putting up with me and my questions. And I should add that my continued vague antipathy toward short people can in no way be blamed on ScarySaxon (or indeed her big sister) since they both seem lovely.

April has only really begun tonight: yes, I'm a bit slack. April is bread-baking month, so I swung by Sainsbury on the way home to pick up some yeast.

Until Mr J Oliver started telling everyone that supermarkets gave away yeast for free, supermarkets gave away yeast for free. Last time I got any I had to pay a few pence for my two ounces. Today it seems the minimum I could buy was a block, which weighs about a pound and a half. That's a lot of yeast.

And indeed a lot of bread. If anyone has any suggestions of innovative uses for yeast in cookery, let's have 'em. In fact, if anyone has any unusual or interesting bread suggestions I'd like to hear those too.

(Actually, if the mother is reading, could she please sling her hot cross bun recipe my way ? I know I'm a bit late for such things. I'll miss the cross off and call them Pentecost buns or something.)

I presume yeast won't react well to freezing, and thus I do need to use it up. The bakery lady in Sainbury's told me it would keep for four weeks in the fridge, which was longer than I expected. The rather old-fashioned wrapped on the yeast says "now suitable for frozen dough". Huh ? Does that mean I can make dough, then freeze it pre-bake ?

Comments

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

I just made cinnamon buns (Nigella recipe) which have come out lovely, although timing them to coincide with dinner meant that I bodged the butter/cinnamon/sugar a bit and they're stickier and less cinnamon-ish than I would have liked. Made HCBs on Sat from a Delia recipe and they were too hard and solid; I'd double the yeast (to make the consistency more like the cinnamon buns, which took a surprisingly large amount of yeast) if I did it again.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Thanks - found the recipe online (http://www.notquitenigella.com/2008/03/19/nigella-lawson-norwegian-cinnamon-buns-from-how-to-be-a-domestic-goddess/), and might give it a go. Do they also work well cold ? Can't think of a situation in the near future where I'm likely to have enough people round to eat 20 cinnamon buns at one go.

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

Dunno - will go and nab a couple (sure narenek will want one) and try them now. :) Reporting back shortly!

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

Verdict is yes, they work cold. Nom. :D

[narenek.livejournal.com]

Nom Nom Nom.

Suspect they'll go stale quickly, I'd better make sure they don't hang about.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the self-sacrificing investigation ;)

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

Oh, and what that link says about adding more flour? Hell yes. It's seriously sticky dough and I reckon it took at least another 100g of flour to get it into a manageable state.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Incidentally, where did you acquire your yeast ? Is it possible to purchase/steal such things in Oxford without ending up with enough to bake bread for the troops ?

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

Tesco - it's dried yeast which we bought for the breadmaker, comes in bags of 125g (which is still quite a lot when you use 1tsp at a time but hey ho). The big Tesco does have a few different types of yeast available, or at least they did. They seem to have reorganised and pared down a lot of lines in the last month so I wouldn't bank on it now.

[sea-of-flame.livejournal.com]

I take it you're after fresh rather than dried yeast then? Supermarkets will always sell sachets of dried...what's this about them giving yeast away?

[venta.livejournal.com]

Yup - bread made with dried yeast always tastes a bit weird to me.

It used to be the case that if you wandered into the bakery section of any supermarket large enough to have one on-site they'd just give you a few ounces of yeast.

The various cookery books publicised this, and I presume there was a corresponding upsurge of people doing it. I guess demand for yeast was so low - and the price of a few ounces so meagre - that it just wasn't worth the bother of selling it. Once the celebrity chefs of this world had blown the gaffe and increased the demand, capitalism took over :)

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

blown the gaffe

Heh, a live eggcorn observed in the wild! Nice one.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Huh ?
I don't really understand. Unless you're telling me it should be "blown the gaff", in which case it's more of a spelling mistake than an eggcorn.

I don't know the etymology of the phrase, and gaffe seemed more likely to me than gaff. A quick google suggests that gaff is more common.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I was assuming that you'd guessed that the phrase derived somehow from gaffe = an indiscreet remark. If you were just plucking gaffe in preference to gaff without thought of its meaning, then it is indeed not an eggcorn.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I didn't really think much at all, I just thought that was how it was spelled. I'm not even sure I really knew that 'gaff' existed as a word (except when preceeded by 'shandy').

So.. what is the derivation ?

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

World Wide Words thinks the most likely is from gaff = cheat's trick method (ultimately from gaff = hooked pole for pulling fish out of water), ie. to give away a trade secret. This sounds pretty convincing to me.

[pm215]

I'll miss the cross off and call them Pentecost buns

Pentecost buns should obviously be decorated with examples from as many different alphabets, syllabaries and other writing systems as you can come up with.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Or, of course, be outrageously chilli-flavoured :)

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Pizza bases.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Good point, although the one thing we seem to have about a million of at present is frozen pizza bases. Obviously home-made ones would be nicer, but it seems daft to make more before we've eaten the backlog.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

D'ohhhhh.

The one time I have made bread rolls and frozen them, they came out white and friable and completely inedible. I'm not sure whether this was because of the cook or the freezer but I haven't tried it again. I suspect shop-bought bread that can be frozen has some industrially-available ingredient to make this work, like frozen desserts with "cream" on.

[venta.livejournal.com]

You may be right about the industrial additives, but home-made bread can certainly be frozen without mishap. The mother used to make six loaves at a time when I was little, and bung them in the freezer til needed. Last time I made bread I put some in the freezer (in bags) and it seemed to survive OK.

[secondhand-rick.livejournal.com]

If anyone has any suggestions of innovative uses for yeast in cookery, let's have 'em.

Ventabeer.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Brewers' yeast is a bit different; it has to be tough enough to survive for a while in a steadily alcoholizing solution. Although I believe you can use baking yeast to make ginger beer.

[secondhand-rick.livejournal.com]

Your factual intervention is most unwelcome; I want ventabeer!

[ext2366.livejournal.com]

Don't bother with crumpets. They're so cheap in the supermarket, and my home made ones made a mess of a pan, and didn't taste better.

Incidentally, how much did they charge for the pound and a half of yeast, and how long does it last? I might have to try using fresh yeast.

Cinnamon buns are great. I've been making HCBs using a recipe in the lakeland catalogue from early March which has been working well.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Blimey. I'd never thought of crumpets. In fact, I've never even considered that one might actually make crumpets. I think I thought they grew on trees.

The block of yeast is slightly over a pound and a half (probably something sensible in metric) and cost the princely sum of 99p. The lady in the bakery assured me it'd last 4 weeks if kept in the fridge. She was particular that it had to be cold all the time (which, fortunately, it usually is in our fridge).

Maybe we can start some sort of socialist yeast collective where we share a block out once a month :)

[ebee.livejournal.com]

Natalie made her own pitta bread for the wedding- bit of unneccessary fab i'd think but she did an ok job on them and said it wasnt too complex.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I've no idea how to make pitta. I suspect they probably don't involve yeast (do they?)

I'm curious now, will have to look up a recipe...

[(Anonymous)]

Recipe on way via email. DON'T attempt crumpets, they really are one thing better bought than made.