The Grand Breadxperiment - Hovis Fast Action Bread Yeast

Next up, another one of these sachet jobbies - Hovis Fast Action Bread Yeast:

Six 7g sachets, makes up to 10 loaves. Not too sure how they work that out, perhaps some very precise scales, or you just make ten different-sized loaves - in which case they could say, 'makes up to forty loaves'.

But anyway. It seem to have more additives than other yeasts and so was curious to see what sort of effects these might have. I'm not convinced they are particularly necessary but what the hey.

Foamed up reasonably on activation:

No trouble kneading followed by a pretty decent sort of rise:

The risen dough had a slightly odd structure but that may have been due to me not kneading properly. I did the time but maybe not the quality. Who knows. The shaped and then risen tin:

As you can see, I had trouble making it anything other than wonky. It sprung like crazy in the oven and the sides of the crusts split as a result, making it fiddly to cut:

End result - good soft open texture, pleasant flavour and very nice toasted.

The Grand Breadxperiment - Allinson's Easy Bake Yeast

Today we look at Allinson Easy Bake Yeast. This is another one with improvers and so on but doesn't seem to contain anything more suspect than Vitamin C.

Strictly doesn't need activating but went for it anyway. Significant foam:

Had a bit of a job bringing the dough together and so had to give it a lot of force in the kneading to get the final nice smooth dough:

I did also lose the timings a bit as I was making another loaf but I wasn't too far off. Rose like mad:

Once knocked back and shaped it rose madly for the second time:

As I had some cheese left over from a bolognese I chucked it on top and baked:

Colliers cheese is very tasty in this way, I'll probably use it for a cheese and bacon loaf.

Final result - excellent texture, very soft but not doughy.

Rat Playground

Of course, it's not all bread, bread, bread. In preparation for the incoming baby, we'd been given (or bought, I lose track of all the stuff) a Moses basket. No stand, though, so Fran scoured ebay and other sources and we eventually found one. It also came with a Moses basket which seemed handy. Unfortunately, the basket was a bit crushed in one corner and so we weren't too happy about using that one for the baby - especially as we already had a perfectly good intact one.

Well, I say unfortunately.

RAT MOSES BASKET PLAYHOUSE:

Yes, there truly is a use for slightly damaged Moses baskets. I felt that they maybe needed a bit of an explore and I was a bit idle one evening so.. We have egg boxes, Ikea children's storage things and a hanging metal ball with shrimp biscuits in.

First up was the girls, with the exception of Sansa - I'm still trying to get her to trust me and it's going well, other than a single little bite. I think dragging her out of the cage and throwing her into a basket might set her back a bit.

Here's Arya, poking her head up:

This is Broken Sword, she was the most effective at trying to escape:

And last but not least, the delicate and slightly nervy Beneath a Steel Sky:

She's crawling over an upside-down storage thing that's lashed to the base of the basket at a few points. Some treats are hidden under it and the girls didn't take very long figuring out how to get at them.

I then got some of the boys in (after removing the girls, I'm not stupid). Here's the two Bongo Fury boys:

No More Mr Nice Guy:

And Awkward Customer:

Awkward Customer remains endearingly loopy.

They all seemed to enjoy the play.

The Grand Breadxperiment - Morrisons Fast Action Dried Yeast

Now, this won't be a direct comparison as such as Morrisons Fast Action Dried Yeast is a sachet-type. However, I'm mostly doing this in terms of discovering which yeast regime produces the best results rather than being a strict comparison. So, Morrisons.

Firstly this is supplied as 7g sachets which contains the yeast as well as ascorbic acid (vitamin C) and 'bread improvers' - probably extra gluten. Normally I was using 5g of yeast for the recipe so with the weight of the extra ingredients it's probably nearly equivalent.

First thing to note was that this was made on a significantly warmer day. However, as the dough is being risen in a heated microwave chamber this is not necessarily a major factor in the results. Declaring it for clarity though.

Here's the stuff:

Technically it shouldn't need to be activated in water before use but I went ahead and did it anyway. Sue me:

Did foam up pretty well, despite my inability to demonstrate it photographically. Initial mix:

Kneaded nicely as ever to give a smooth, elastic dough. Here's the before and after for the rising. It was substantial, I think more so than the previous experiment:

After knocking back and shaping it into the loaf tin it had another 30 minute rise and puffed up obviously more than the Doves Farm:

Sprung up well in the oven to give a pleasing finished result:

Definitely a noticeable difference in texture and flavour - not as soft as the Doves Farm but that could be down to the oven keeping its temperature better in the warm conditions. Once again, made absolutely perfect toast - the sort of moist, crispy toast that keeps its heat for more than a second and had the most wonderful flavour. Mmf.

Stay tuned for more loaf-related posts.

The Grand Breadxperiment - Doves Farm Quick Yeast

Well, guess what - it's been a while since I posted. This happens, get the hell used to it. Buck up, and so on.

Mostly the usual sorts of things have been happening, combined with the rapidly approaching arrival of a baby. Back to more important matters though - I am starting a systematic test of bread yeasts in the hope of finding a brand and a method that produces consistently good results. These experiments will be documented here in the hope of being vaguely useful to anyone who searches for systematic tests of dried yeasts.

First off, let's define the protocol. I say protocol to make it sound more scientific, but I really mean recipe.

The base of the recipe is from The Fabulous Baker Brothers - a book I can heartily recommend (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fabulous-Baker-Brothers-Tom-Herbert/dp/0755363655). As follows:

• 560g strong white flour
• 10g sea salt
• 300ml tepid water
• 20ml rapeseed oil
• 5g dried yeast

This makes a good-sized 2 pound loaf. For clarity, the flour was Allisons Strong White Bread Flour (the stuff in the pale green pack). The sea salt was Maldon, the water was made from one part boiling water to two parts tap water and the oil was swapped for 15g of olive oil.

Each time I will activate the yeast for 10 minutes in the water with half a teaspoon of sugar - even for yeasts that don't technically need it, I reckon it'll help. Once initially mixed I will allow a five minute resting time for the dough before kneading for 15 minutes and only add additional flour if it proves absolutely necessary. Rising and proving will be done by heating a cup of mug of water in the microwave for two minutes and then placing the dough alongside to provide a warm and humid chamber. So, here goes.

Test 1 - Doves Farm Quick Yeast

Reasonable bit of foaming after activation in water:

The initial mix:

Post-kneading. Was a bit sticky for a while but it settled down and came out quite nice and smooth and springy:

After an hour rising in my microwave humidity chamber. Pretty substantial rise:

Before and after second prove after knocking back and moulding into tin:

Final results. Was baked for 30 mins, starting at 240 degrees with some water in the oven for steam, followed by dropping to 210 after 10 minutes, with a quick open of the oven door to release the excess steam. I technically forgot to slash the dough but it seems to have turned out ok.

Could maybe stand an extra 5 minutes in the oven, but not sure. There's a tiny, borderline hintette of doughiness which I may be imagining.

Overall, Doves Farm Quick Yeast looking good. Up next - Allinsons Dried Active Yeast. Had trouble with this in the past but it may have just been that I wasn't properly warming the dough for rising, etc. Stay tuned.

So it goes

Been a bit busy on the whole. Let's see.

Friday saw the continuation of the Cardiff-based supernatural investigative roleplaying game. I'm not convinced that I'm following the right approach but we're slowly gathering more information as well as dispatching an occasional shapeshifting baddie. Watch this space.

On Saturday we popped off to a RAT SHOW. It was hosted by the National Fancy Rat Society (NFRS) and took place in a nice little church in Miskin. As you might imagine, there were lots of lovely rats and also very nice cakes. The cakes and rats were kept well apart.

We picked up a couple of new hammocks and things from the stalls - one from The Rat Warehouse and some being sold by the (NFRS). The show is essentially a Crufts-style affair where rats are brought in and judged according to varieties, based on the 'standards' as well as condition, vitality, curiosity, etc. They also have a 'pets' section for rats which, while excellent, don't adhere strictly to the standards. The winner of this was a beautiful rex with great fur and curly whiskers. He didn't qualify for the main show due to some little patches of missing fur but he was ace anyway. There were also competitions that tested them for curiosity and also an obstacle course.

The main thing though was that we collected a pair of genuine proper breeder rats that we'd ordered from Bongo Fury rattery. Behold Bongo Fury Awkward Customer:

And Bongo Fury No More Mr Nice Guy:

The difference between these and pet shop rats is hard to overestimate. They are boundlessly friendly, curious and energetic. Their friendliness even extends to preferring to sniff at and grab me, rather than the food I'm offering. Ignoring food in favour of me is utterly unprecedented in my experience of rats.

Although they are great and doing fantasticly, BF Awkward Customer has a head tilt which you can just about see here:

Can you see the way he's leaning over to his left a bit? I've talked about these a bit before as one of our girls (Sansa) has one too. It's caused by an inner ear infection and leaves them with a sort of crick neck and balance problems. It doesn't seem to bother him in the slightest but he does have a bit of a tendancy to roll over and needs quite careful handling as we can't rely on him to hold on to us as well as rats normally would. When putting him back in the cage he also has a habit of trying to climb in upside down - ie; he'll grab the top of the door and trying to climb upwards. Still, he's perfectly happy and holds his own when BF No More Mr Nice Guy is scrapping with him. That happens a lot.

On Sunday I had my first session of a photography course down in Chapter Arts Centre. This is 'Advanced Digital Photography' and so focuses more on digital editing and manipulation which are skills which I only learned from buggering about with Photoshop so I don't really know what I'm doing. Formal training will be great. Was an enjoyable first session and is producing some astounding artwork:

For part of the session we walked around a sciencey photo exhibition that was on there. Gave me a few ideas and was really nicely done. Some of the bits of science clunked slightly but I wasn't sure if that was a deliberate nod, a sort of acknowledgement of the fakery involved. Still. Got lots to do for the next session.

On Monday we started a new roleplaying game written by one of the people we normally play with. It's about Zombies and I believe it was called Zombies. It's set in the real world with you effectively playing yourself and roleplaying your own responses to an ongoing zombie apocalypse. It uses Google Maps for street view for navigation - with any people you come across in the photos actually being zombies. At the moment we're just trying to sweep a village and establish a sort of beachhead for taking the country back.

As you can see above, the front garden is doing well. That's a flower. Only slight problem is that the weather has forbidden me from trying to deal with the weeds at the moment and I think the weeds are thriving under the new clear garden regime. This will not be tolerated and I hope to deal with them this weekend.

Not been getting that much gaming done. Tried a bit of Dungeon Defenders but I just don't get along with it. I think the interface is a bit too consoley. Mass Effect 3 is slow going but I fear I'm having trouble getting into it. It's a bit too big for me and there's so much going on that I can't keep track now. I will persist but it's a bit overwhelming.

I've been doing some more Welsh study, largely by going through sheets and sheets of work and translating them into English. Gotten a lot more confidence with it now.

Yesterday I discovered that Cardiff Market doesn't appear to have a nut vendor. I wanted them because I'm going for a new paradigm of rat feeding after reading rat nutrition guide, 'The Scuttling Gourmet'. ENRICHMENT:

The basic idea is to feed in such a way that enriches their experience of their environment, gives them interesting things to do and lets them express ratty behaviour such as foraging and destroying bloody everything. Most of what I've done comes from ideas from The Scuttling Gourmet. Above is an initial experiment with a colander which is suspended and filled with food and paper. It moves around slightly and the rats have to dig and burrow to get at the food as well as having a tricky climb in. It's not wholly successful as I couldn't position it just right as there were rats everywhere while I was tying it in..

Experiments with the others have included scattering food around so it gets buried in the shredded cardboard and has to be found, stuffing a tissue box with bits of food so they have to dig through the tissues to find things, putting a whole potted herb in the cage, and filling up and closing egg boxes. This last one was successful with the two new boys but the older ones just ripped it open in a matter of minutes. Next time I'll probably tie it closed so they have to either destroy the skin or gnaw through the box to get anything.

Nuts in shells are also a good one as they have to work hard to break into them. Sadly, finding nuts with shells is proving impossible, but I'll get some soon. This sentence represents a callback to the beginning of this section.

As usual, other stuff too but I can't be expected to cover *everything*.

Multimedia

I think I may have reached the end game with Lil Kingdom. I now have Ogres and a Unicorn;

The unicorn allows you to immediately get the full silver value of all of the stuff in a floor of your dungeon without it being lost. Last time I did this I got enough silver in one go for about six new floors. But there's nothing else good to do with them, other than just generating more silver for more floors. I appreciate the cunning addictiveness of the design and the artistry of the game but I reckon I've had enough.

Another game I've been playing a bit of is Cut the Rope. In this you have a piece of 'candy' on a set of strings suspended over a little monster named Om Nom:

He doesn't like to move to eat so you have to cut the ropes with a swipe to get the candy to swing into his mouth. Extra challenge is added by trying to make it swing so it also intersects with stars for bonus points. Good puzzles.

Jelly Defense is a fairly standard Tower Defense game but with a nice art style and some interesting mechanics:

In essence you have to build towers to kill wave after wave of jelly monsters of different types, so it's all about strategic placement and use of resources. There's also the fact that red towers only kill red jellies, blue kill blue and there's some mixed ones too. Some of the interface is slightly clunky - I often find my finger is in the way of something I need to see - but nothing too vital.

Wind-up Knight is a very pretty racing platformer thing. Not much to say other than it being fun but that it locked my phone up.

Listening to audiobooks continues regularly. At present it is Company of Liars:

This is about a group of traders, musicians, etc, trying to escape the bubonic plague. It's very nicely done and has lovely turns of phrase - "They giggled, delighted by terror" and "As the yawns multiplied around the group" - and some interesting history. Lots of stuff about religious and political persecution of the Jews and other minority groups, some bits about Venetian glassblowers being banished to an island in case they gave their secrets away and all sorts. It's interesting to see the sorts of scapegoating going on - blaming the Jewish population for the bubonic plague, rather than having to accept their own powerlessness. Some of the characters are despicable but most of them are compelling and the book is read wonderfully by David Thorpe.

A physical book I've been reading has been Mouse Guard. It's a graphic novel about the hidden society of mice, hunted by just about everything and protected and guided by the titular Mouse Guard. It features a dual-wielding dagger mouse named Sadie:

That is probably all you need to know to rush out and buy it.

We had a bit more rat sickness. Arya is doing fine after her antibiotics but Nightcrawler has since needed some. Furthermore, Fran noticed a lump on Sansa's neck on Wednesday, prompting us to go to the vet's last night. Sansa remains impossible to handle so the vet wasn't able to diagnose exactly so we just booked in for an operation next Tuesday. We took some antibiotics home and mixed them with some apricot jam to get them to take them. This necessitated keeping Sansa in her own cage for the time being so she actually eats the dose we want her to have.

Upon getting up this morning and examining her, the lump is gone! There's some crusty skin around it so it looks like she burst it. No sign of any pus or blood either. It had been bothering her and she was scratching it a lot so she must have dealt with it herself. Clever girl! Chased her around with some antiseptic to make sure it doesn't get infected but with minimal success. She can stay on her own for a little bit as it might do her good.