31 December 2009

go for the dough

| astrojax
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as the swiss will say: old bread is not hard; no bread is hard.

ok rioters, a quick look at the search function tells me we haven’t had a rant or boast about the very staple of life – bread – here any recent time… so, where is the best loaf to be had in sunny canberra, then?

i gather silo will get a few votes and perhaps some of the vietnamese bakers may not get any. now i like good bread, a dense dark loaf usually gets my vote, though a soft sourdough with hard butter, home-grown tomato and salt is hard to pass up… but if there is a brilliant ciabatta or a simply delicious white loaf i need to try, let me – and everyone else – know.

where do we get our bread?

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Seconding (thirding?) Chifley IGA for the rye sourdough, especially if still warm! Also love Hughes 210 degrees bakery bread, though I am grrr at them for dropping the Italian bread. And my current fave is the chewy, chewy, woodfired bread from the southside markets (indoors). The plain one is great but I can go through tons of the olive and pesto one. I love the soft, floury pizza bases you can get from some delis/greengrocers too.

carbones was best bought from their oven in the back of qbyn early morn and whisked back to be had toen apart and lavished with a slab of butter. mmmmmmm…

Flute in Fyshwick makes fantastic bread and other bakery products. However, they’re not open weekends, and tend to sell out pretty soon after lunch, so get in early.

s-s-a said :

Woodfired breads from the indoor stall at Southside Farmers Market are great (and on Sundays too for poster at #7)

I agree that Cornucopia are nowhere near as good as they were a decade ago, and are shut all of this month anyway.

Good to know Carbone’s is still in production it is absolutely lovely – can you still buy loaves in paper bags at supermarkets?

Yes Carbones is still around, now they trade as Dom’s Woodfired Italian Bread cant get it at big supermarkets like woolies anymore but at some IGA’s and Deli’s still. Best place to find them is at the EPIC markets on Sat mornings and the Old Bus depot markets on Sundays where they also have beautful foccacias and other types.

Woody Mann-Caruso10:27 am 04 Jan 10

No worries – there are plenty of videos of ‘my’ recipe on YouTube – just Google ‘artisan bread in five’ or ‘no knead bread’. This one is particularly good for seeing what a no-knead dough is like, although all the flipping / tea towels aren’t necessary – just sit it on baking paper and plop the whole lot in the pot (or on a pizza stone with water in a tray). I got a $90 dutch oven from Allens / Harris Scarfe – works fine, though I tend to use the ‘artisan bread in five’ pizza stone approach these days.

thanks woody and jerry – must try those recipes! and ta the other suggestions (dammit, was through braidwood yesterday o n way home from coast)

Homebake Rye Bread (easy, delicious and failproof)

3 cups bread flour
1 cup rye flour
1/4 cup of dried yeast
teaspoon of salt, more or less to taste

Mix all together then add enough hot tap water to make a sticky (not sloppy) dough
Cover bowl with gladwrap and leave for at least 4 hours. It will rise to about double.
Tip into an oiled loaf tin or just shape on a metal tray
Place in a COLD oven and set temp to 220c and bake for one hour.

This is a moist loaf with a hard crust that keeps forever and tastes terrific fresh or toasted. One slice is filling.

I’ll admit that I am a sucker for a crusty bread, with large holes – think Ciabatta. Dom’s occasionally makes a rip snorter, as does the Hawker Bakery. When its on song, Dom’s is the best, but they only seem to get it right about once a month, the rest of the time there is are small lifeless holes in the crumb.

Hawker Bakery is quite good with its Ciabatta, a lot more consistent than Dom’s but doesn’t get the highs either.

That being said, there is nothing like a freshly baked loaf at home, especially something like this.

The name of the awesome bakery troll-sniffer’s looking for is the Dojo Bakery (yes, it’s in a dojo). You can also get it from the Braidwood IGA if they’re not sold out by the time you get there.

troll-sniffer1:29 pm 02 Jan 10

A bit out of town but down at Braidwood, in a laneway behind the Braidwood Bakery is a little bakery producing superb home made bread. Not part of the Braidwood Bakery though. Can’t remember the name of the business but yummo, mega-crusty bread of real weight and substance…

TheVirulentOne11:06 am 02 Jan 10

Danny’s Bakery in Narrabundah is well worth visiting for their excellent sourdough. Their loaves are also sold at many of the grocers at Fyshwick Markets, but if you visit the bakery then you can also pick up their fresh rolls, which are just amazing when hot out of the oven.

I used to frequent Silo for bread, but apart from the occasional winter visit for fresh baguettes, Danny’s is now my top choice for bread.

For those of us on more modest budgets – the $1.99 Pane di Casa from Aldi gets my vote. Toasted and with olive oil, fresh tomato and salt it is the bizness.

Woodfired breads from the indoor stall at Southside Farmers Market are great (and on Sundays too for poster at #7)

I agree that Cornucopia are nowhere near as good as they were a decade ago, and are shut all of this month anyway.

Good to know Carbone’s is still in production it is absolutely lovely – can you still buy loaves in paper bags at supermarkets?

Oh, best lamingtons and fruit buns I’ve had are from Urambi organic bakery in Phillip (they also have a stall at the Southside Farmers Market on Sundays).

There’s a family who turn up at the Southside Farmers Markets every Sunday, and their offering is the best ever. They have no other outlet, but their bread is worth waiting a week for. They set up outside in the courtyard (sort of opposite the sausage sizzle).

I just wish I wasn’t the only one in my family still allowed to eat bread; I’d give Woody-Mann’s recipe a go.

I only bother buying nice bread from the sourdough people at the Farmers’ Market at Epic on Saturdays. They do a nice crusty baguette as well.

Cornucopia is ok if you can brave the scrum at the weekend.

moneypenny26123:42 pm 01 Jan 10

The fruit loaf made by the Infinity Sourdough Bakery at the EPIC farmers market is now one of my dietary staples – apricots, figs, hazelnuts and spices wrapped in a sourdough worthy of the name. Yum. (Yes, they’re from Sydney – but they make good bread. The savoury loafs aren’t bad either although they tend to be lighter than I like).

I also like Croissant D’Or – but only as a treat as the bread is pricey and their tempting pastries are life threatening.

I have to say Cornucopia leaves me cold – I haven’t been for years.

emd said :

Anything from Cornucopia is good.

Whilst still solid, I reckon Cornucopia have really dropped it in the last few years. Title for best baguette goes to Croissant Doir. For sourdough you’ll have to deal with the queues and the staff at Silo. Dom’s bread (ex Carbones) is the go for crusty Italian style bread, but it has to be consumed on the day it’s baked. (If not, splash a loaf all over with water and stick it in the oven at about 100 degrees for five or ten minutes.) Get it from the Bus Depot Markets on Sundays, or go to Fruitacious at Manuka (next to Coles) any other day and pay about $1-2 less than most other outfits will charge.

Apparently there’s an outfit in Fyshwick that makes awesome bread, but they’re not open on the weekend. (I’m sure someone will put in a plug for them in this thread.)

Other than that, I’d’ like to bemoan the lack of competition for Silo, and also the fact that there’s nowhere decent that I’m aware of that bakes on Sundays.

The rye loaf at Chifley shops is great.
Anything from Cornucopia is good.

If its traditional European type bread you are after, then I concur with Silo. IGA in Deakin also make (sell) Germania style buns, which are pretty much on the mark for similarity!

Woody Mann-Caruso7:36 pm 31 Dec 09

Haven’t bought bread for a year now.

6 cups bread flour
3 cups water
1 tbsp flaked salt
1/8 tsp instant yeast

Dump in plastic tub. Stir together with a spoon til combined – don’t bother kneading. Put on lid and forget about it for a day. Pull off a quarter of the dough, chuck the rest in the fridge for up to two weeks. Dust piece with flour, shape a boule (just stretch the top round to the bottom, give it a quarter turn, repeat til you’ve got a tight ball). Rest on baking paper for a couple of hours. Preheat oven to 230oC with pizza stone on the middle shelf and griller tray on bottom shelf. Dust / slash the top of the loaf, drop it on the pizza stone (paper and all), throw a cup of hot water in the griller tray, close the door, bake for 30 minutes, cool on a rack before slicing.

At the bus depot markets for something a bit special or at the Erindale bakery during the week. Better still try and make it yourself, at least you know what will be in it.

gun street girl5:59 pm 31 Dec 09

I cross the border with my Italian bread loyalties: Carbone’s from Queanbeyan is without peer, IMHO.

I’ll put a plug in here for 210 Degrees bakery at Hughes, they make some great bread – and the best mince pies I’ve ever had at Christmas!!

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