Bottlenecks. Perhaps the neck of a bottle of good craft beer. Or perhaps a narrow section of road impeding traffic. Well its bake day today at doughies, and so the bottleneck in question is a too small mixer impeding dough work flow! Today there's the usual regular orders for 75 loaves of sourdough goodness. That's roughly… Continue reading Bottlenecks
What is the question that drives you? The one that keeps you awake at night (in a good way)? For me it is questions like "where have all the oats gone?" "why are crofters not growing rye anymore?" and How can small food production on our croft be closed loop?" You can blanket these questions under… Continue reading The question that drives you
Hogmanay It's the 2nd of January - 2 days after Hogmanay. And January is a great time to reflect on the past, and think about the year ahead. Here at doughies HQ - we've been planning some micro changes for 2018. Here they are:- Thursday is the new Friday During 2017, we baked weekly every… Continue reading 2018 – micro changes
Blogging (at least for me) is about externalising internal thought. Writing down sometimes dis-jointed brain musings, connecting them together and then releasing them into the world. Today my collated strand of thought is centred on waste - both food waste, and waste efficiency being a small food producer. Hibernating for the Winter to avoid Waste… Continue reading Waste
So...we tentatively entered this years Dragon's Glen at Lochaber Ideas Week (a local entrepreneur event organised by the Lochaber Chamber of Commerce). We entered with a local rye loaf, which we previously touched on in blog-posts here and here. And we've been invited to pitch our idea at the Semi's on 15th November 19:00 at the Moorings… Continue reading Doughies enter Dragon’s Glen 2017 with Lochaber Rye Loaf Entry
The pics you might normally see posted by doughies are:- Dough shaping on the table Dough being scored and peeled into the oven Cooling racks liaden with crackling bread (as above). They are the photogenic end of a slow food journey. Check out any bakers instagram feed and you will find them there. Just as… Continue reading Preparation
Each autumn on the Croft the land is cultivated and sown with precious rye seed kept safe for this very moment. In the September sun it shoots forth, and lays down its roots, before the approaching Highland dreich and winter frosts. Cows brae from the cow barn, and during the dark winter night the rye… Continue reading Crofting – Imagining some Closed loop fermented food fiction
There's not a lot in our sourdoughs. Our ingredient list is 1) flour 2) water 3) a pinch of salt 4) a touch of oil (to grease our tins & dough crates. Plus time and love. So with so few ingredients, its essential for us to select the best flour, the best salt, the best oil.… Continue reading Salt & Trust
So confession time - I am a bit of a nerd when it comes to information feeds - especially on the subject of minimalism, local food production, growing, baking, fermenting, old tractors, machining bits for said old tractors and generally "how things work". I'm subscribed to a number of podcasts, a fair few you-tube feeds, some… Continue reading Would you be a Local Food Patreon?
Originally posted in Issue 11 (April 2017) of the SCF Crofter magazine:- As I look out of our croft house window, drinking a mug of Kvass (a home brew ferment made with waste rye bread), my eyes are drawn to the bare inbye fields, and I wonder - where have all the oats gone? … Continue reading Where have all the oats gone?
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