00 Flour

As previewed, I've now got a back of 00 flour. It's McDougall's flour, and I'd like to put a link to the appropriate website, but there isn't one. All they have is a holding page, which could well have been there for months.  What there is suggests that McDougall is the Cinderella of the Rank Hovis household, and I suppose the brand is intended to suggest cake and pastry, rather than bread. The packaging reflects that, too. It's a background of burgundy with a thin white stripe, suggesting an apron, dotted with pictures of little cakes and some pasta. You'd think by now someone would be selling something labelled as pasta flour, even if it was exactly the same on the inside.

Anyway, I think I'm going to try a ciabatta, so I've mixed a biga of 200g flour with 200g liquid, inc a little sugar and yeast, and I've put it in the fridge. My note to myself is to remember to add salt and oil in the morning.

In the meantime, I've also used the flour to make pastry. I've got a very bad record at making pastry. I think I used to over-work it at the rubbing-in stage. The instructions always say it should look like breadcrumbs. That never happens. So I stopped myself and put the fairly lumpy dough in the fridge. It's the rolling that does most of the work, maybe.

So 100g flour, 50g butter, about a tablespoon of sugar turns out to be really good. I've made three apple tarts, and a turnover, which was terrific. I'd rolled the dough out quite thin. Not filo thin, obv, but close, and it came out crisp and tasty.

I'll update on the bread tomorrow.