Paul Milner is a tart

...maker extraordinaire. That is, he rather makes one mean tartes aux pommes.

Whilst tidying up some pictures for that last post on bread, I found one of the tart he cooked for my birthday back in the summer and I so very rudely forgot to mention it here. So here, in all it's glory, I give you, dear reader, le tart...

It was apples were blessed by the summer sun and cooled by the beating of little birds wings. The pastry was fit for wiping the bottoms of angels, the glaze reflected the summer rays back to the heavens from surely where this tart had been baked in God's own oven. Or something like that. It was very nice. And thank you.

And so to bread...

A bit of a mixed weekend on the bread baking front. Started Friday night with "Flaky butter buns" (top picture) as featured on Woman's Hour on Radio 4 on Tuesday. Finished them off on Saturday morning and the less said about them the better.



This was followed by a variation on an ale loaf (middle picture) from The Handmade Loaf. Instead of wheat grains, I used barley grains for a change and because I'd drunk all the ale, I had to soak the cooked grains in water overnight. Very good loaf but the grains looked a little odd as they stood out quite white against the crumb, even after toasting. I guess if I hadn't drunk all the ale then they would have been a browner hue.



Finally Sunday was my usual Pain de Campagne (bottom picture, rear) and a lemon barley cob (bottom picture, front), again from The Handmade Loaf.
I should have checked the website for the lemon and barley cob as I recalled corrections had been posted and sure enough, they had been. Doh! (If you can pardon the pun.) So I kneaded in a little more flour. At my guestimate, the recipe only needed another 25g or so of flour to stiffen it up a little. I should amend my cookbooks more often and not try to keep them in a pristine, unused condition. Can't remember where I read it now but I recall a quote something like "a book should be like a piece of furniture - you know you're going to use it and it's going to get worn but you want to look after it the best you can."
The Pain de Campagne is basically the baguette recipe from here in tinkered form and shape.