Dark in the afternoons

I don't like these winter evenings. I don't even think it is really winter yet. I am never sure the exact months that make up the seasons. Are the solstices and equinoxes in the mid part of the season? That doesn't seem correct to me......

....is summer May-June-July or is it as I always believed June-July-August?  And the Christmas carol 'In the deep mid winter', are they implying the mid winter is around Christmas or the winter solstice? I always assumed winter was December-January-February.

Have the seasons slipped? Is it to do with the earths orbit or global warming? Is too much forest area being cut down to make way for dairy farming? The tress are the lungs of the planet and soak up carbon dioxide. Cut too many down and the planet can't breath.

And now in this country we might loose 90% of our ash trees.  Damn!  I like English ash. It is a great wood. I have made lots of pieces from it.

I just finished a big hall mirror where the frame is from ash. It is to go with the olive ash and ash sideboard I will be taking to the Handmade in Britain show this week in Chelsea Old Town Hall.

I also made a small jewellery chest of drawers. Something that sits on top of a dressing table. It is from olive ash and walnut. Here are some pictures of it.

Olive ash and walnut jewellery cabinet

Drawers have divider compartments

The jewellery gives the piece a sense of scale

Four of the drawers have dividers in them, the size of the divider compartment getting large in each drawer down, while the fifth drawer is just empty for large objects.

It will look good at the show sitting on the sideboard.

Please check my website if you want to find out more about my furniture, follow me on my Facebook pages, or see what I am talking about on Twitter.

Chalara is coming

With my next show coming up in less that three weeks time, I have been busy in the workshop making items for my stand.

I normally have furniture 'ready to go', but at the moment most of my work is currently in galleries around the country.  So I had to make some more.

Anyway, the big items are done.....I still have a mirror to make, and that is being a bit of a pain.  I went to the local glass cutter down from the workshop of get a mirror cut and a 15mm bevel put all the way round the edge. The machine they use for doing the bevel was broken, but the person would be coming to fix it the following week.  That was over five weeks ago. Whenever I go in, it has been fixed and broken again and they are still waiting for the repair to be done. I was getting very pee'd off with all this, and when I went in the beginning of last week to see 'progress', I did get a bit stroppy. But I had right to? Customer service???  Anyway for some mad reason, I also wanted some glass shelves cut and toughened for the display cabinet I had made. My displeasure could be seen, so the price I was given for the mirror and shelves was very very good.  I have the shelves now, but still waiting for the mirror. The machine should be fixed today. I will find out when I go back tomorrow.

Something I have been making is a small chest of drawers that will be used to hold jewellery. I do have picture of it, and these are on my furniture Facebook pages. The pictures I have posted there don't give a clue as to what I am making, nor do I say. It is something for my Facebook followers to guess, but coming from my blog you know.

On a different note, you may have seen on the news the stories about the threat to the ash trees in the country from a fungal attack.  There is an app on both Android and iOS that can be used to identify and report any ash trees that you find are infected. You can get the app from your OS store, and can find out more information from their website.

Please check my website if you want to find out more about my furniture, follow me on my Facebook pages, or see what I am talking about on Twitter.

Living in my 'fridge

I do other things than make furniture.

I like to make things, I always have done.  I used to be a computer programmer. That is making things, but something most people can't see - only use.

One thing I like to make is bread.  Why?  I like to know what is in it. All I put in my bread is flour, water, salt and some kind of yeast. No bread improvers. No chemicals and additives that get 'destroyed' during the baking so they are not listed in the ingredients. Just flour, water, salt and some kind of yeast.

My yeast, or rather sourdough leaven lives in my 'fridge. It isn't that old. I only started it on 29th December 2011.  I remember its birthday. All the leaven is really is a living culture of yeast. People have these cultures that are many many years old. And I am talking 30, 40, 50 years old.

When I make sourdough, I use this leaven instead of dried yeast.  It takes a bit more work, but not that much more, but the bread does really taste good.

To start the process going, a couple of days before I want to bake (normally baking day is Saturday), I take the leaven out of the 'fridge and let it warm up for a few hours. This is what it looks like:

The leaven lives in a clip lid box in the 'fridge

Bit scary, isn't it?  Don't worry it is fine. It has a fermentation/sour/beer smell. This is normal, and is what adds flavour to the bread. I can't just use the leaven as is, it needs to be fed a couple of times to get it nice and active. It eats flour and water. So I mix up a 2:3 flour/water mix and feed it. Probably a couple of times over a 24 hour period.

Once the leaven is nice and active, I can start to make the sourdough. The first stage is to make something called a sponge. Basically it is a flour and water mix to which a ladle full of leaven is added. This sponge is then left ferment overnight, while the leaven can go back in the 'fridge till next time.

This is the sponge after an overnight ferment.

The 'sponge' after fermenting overnight

It has a very light and bubbly texture and smells very beer like. Reminds me of being a kid (probably about 12 years old) and when I got into home beer making. Now that is another story.....

Anyway. Back to the bread.  I take the sponge and then mix it with the rest of the flour and some salt. I may sometimes add a tablespoon of oil. Sometimes I don't. I then shove all this in my mixer and give it a right good ten mins of kneading. Yes, I know I could do it by hand. But I don't as I have a nice mixer, so I use that.

A KitchenAid mixer. What a gadget!

After the kneading process, I end up with a firm dough that is not wet or sticky.

The mixed dough hanging on the mixer dough hook

Now I have to play the game of letting the dough rest for an hour or so, and then shaping it into a tight ball. I will do this four or five times. During this time, the yeast will convert the flour proteins into gluten, and by making the dough into a tight ball, the gluten strands are being pulled and stretched. This has the effect of giving the dough strength and helps keep the dough in shape.

A shaped ball of dough

After this repetitive ball making process, the dough can then be shaped into the final shape for baking. It can be a stubby cylinder, a ball, turned into rolls or even a baguette. Toppings can be added, for example oats, poppy seeds, sunflower seeds or just a dusting of flour. Then once again the dough is left for an hour or so for final proving.

Then madness. It all happens so quick. Slash the top of the bread to release some of that tension built by the gluten, spray with water to help form the crust, transfer the bread onto a hot pizza stone, put in an oven set to the highest temperature possible and pour a good slosh of boiling water into a tray placed at the bottom of the oven. Close the oven door. Stand back, relax and enjoy the smell of the bread cooking.

After ten mins, the oven can be turned down a bit and the bread baked for another 30 - 40 mins, until the crust is firm, has a nice colour and the bread sounds hollow when tapped.

The finished bread.

And there is the final bread. The one on the left is the sourdough, while the one on the right is made with dried yeast. Both use the same amount of wholemeal flour, same amount of water and the same amount of salt. Both went in the oven at the same time and were cooked for the same amount of time. But for some reason, the sourdough always comes out with a much darker crust.

Both taste great though.

Next time, back to woodwork!