Beet This

Beetbrot – yes, I know we’ve been here several times before but this one is particularly spectacular.

I have a very useful little trade with Carrie, Bethesda’s star cheese maker (Cosyn Cymru). She supplies me with cheese and yoghurt that she thinks are not quite saleable and I supply her with the odd loaf of bread. “Not quite saleable” means great for inclusion in bread.

So these two loaves contained a whole 480ml jar of her Ewe’s Milk Set Yoghurt, which Carrie thought had turned out a bit cheesy, and a 200g pack of Chwaral cheese that had turned well blue. And, of course, local beetroot.

“Mam bach!” as they say round here. The smell when the loaves were baking was fantastic. But I restrained myself for 24 hours before reaching for the bread knife.

I still feel elated when I turn out in-your-face loaves like this. There are a lot of bland looking sourdough loaves around but these are unruly and fit to fight. No Dutch oven could hold them …