We’re Running Out of Thyme, Marty!

Well, we aren’t actually, but it was too good a title pun to *not* use. Deal with it.

So I decided my new kitchen has been in-situ long enough for me to make one of my Baked In boxes, but I didn’t have fresh ingredients for any of the cakes. So I went for the bread that’s been waiting for me – Olive and Thyme Loaf. As always, the first joy comes from opening the box. These little blue boxes of utter joy are what you get by joining the Baked In Bread Baking Club. Lookit! Look at those lovely neat little bags of STUFF. And… and… THINGS! You may be asking yourself ‘but where is Bag 5, Sarah?’ I asked myself that very thing. Bag 5 had become stuck to a leaflet in the box and I’d hidden it. But it didn’t get far, the sticky little customer and rejoined its companions in packaging heaven. Want a monthly box of your own like this? Check it out RIGHT HERE (RIGHT NOW).

Hey, Bag 6, what the devil are YOU? Just killing thyme. Also, you’re nothing compared to the suspicious thing that is bag 5.

There’s something wickedly enjoyable about looking at all these little beautifully numbered packets, so off we go! Bag 1 and 2 – bread flour. Dump into bowl. Add bag 3 – sugar and salt, bag 4 – yeast. So far so bread. Then we add bag 5. Let’s consider bag 5 for just a moment, shall we? Bag 5 is a substitute. It’s dried black olive granules instead of dried green olive granules (the horror). Or… IS IT?

Bag 5 is looking suspiciously like something that might get me written up at the roadside if I was caught with it.

Open bag 5. Sniff curiously. It’s olives. Pitch into bowl, add bag 6 (dried thyme) and stir about gleefully to combine. Add a tablespoon of oil. Tablespoon. Tablespoon? Oh yeah. New kitchen, thrown all old measuring things away, waiting for new ones to arrive in pack of Giant Kitchen Tat that’s on its way. Measure 15ml of oil. Added water, combined until I had a dough. A tacky dough, says the instructions, but who am I to question this dough’s lifestyle choices? Anyway, even with all the water combined, my dough isn’t particularly tacky, not so much. So in a moment that probably caused Paul Hollywood to suck in air over his teeth and shake his head disapprovingly, I went for it anyway. Eh. It’s combined. It’ll be FINE.

Tip dough out onto clean, floured surface.

I consider my newly installed kitchen worktops and for just a moment, am delighted that I have the house to myself for this venture. The Husband might well have a cardiac arrest at the thought of what I am about to do to these shiny new sufaces.

I am not even exaggerating: these worktops aren’t even a week old at this point. But in true Baked In Crusader style, I GO FOR IT!

OH MY GOD MY NEW WORKTOPS OH MY GOD

I knead. I knead. I KNEAD. Lawks, and probably a-mercy, this dough is a tough customer. It’s like trying to knead a steel bar. But eventually I find some give and end up with a silky smooth, entirely non-tacky ball of dough which I sit in its clean, oiled bowl to prove for the requisite time of 60-90 minutes. I give it 90 minutes because I can. It sits there in the kitchen, quietly covered with its tea towel. I resist peeking. Will it rise? Will it at least double in size? Enjoy the power of the written word, dear reader, because I can take you to exactly 90 minutes later without missing a beat.

Arrr, Cap’n, thar she blows!

Dough is punched a couple of times (question: does anybody else visualise the face of someone they don’t like when they knock back proved dough? Or is that just me?) and shaped into a ball of olivey-thymey doughy goodness to sit for another 25 minutes until I make my attempt to make it look just like the pre-oven image in the instructions. Now, I may be bragging just a little bit here, but look at this. THIS is picture perfect. Now, though, it gets to go in the oven for 40-45 minutes. The new oven. That I am still getting used to. But look at this pre-oven comparison shot. Look at it several times, because 40-45 minutes is a while. Back shortly.

Which is the image, which is the real thing? One thing is for sure, one of those two will taste better after being baked than the other.

And so the alarm sounds. Let’s approach the oven with extreme caution and see what we see, shall we? How has my new oven taken to its bready christening? Well, judge for yourself:-

CHECK IT AAAAAAAAAART.

WELL.

It’s the first thing to come out of my new oven that didn’t start life out as the pizza the Husband brought home on Sunday. The first thing I have baked for myself. And when it’s cooled, I will no doubt enjoy eating it! Like all the bread kits to date, this one was super-easy to make, the instructions were crystal clear and I will also add that the loaf is cooling on one of the new stackable wire racks I got from Baked In with my well-earned Brownie Points.

Tune in next time for Probably Cake and Likely Less Success!