First Foc

Pear & Rosemary Focaccia – first bread not baked directly on the sole of the Pico. My usual 80% hydration dough (https://thepartisanbaker.com/80-hydration/) about 72 hours old. 340g dough within a sandwich tin ring on a pizza tin. 330C top & bottom. Have to learn to be braver. Baking is about charred bits and uncharred bits […]

Commander Cody

The phone call didn’t help. Just before I caught the London coach and just after Sue bought a chicken I called to say I’d become vegetarian. It was early days and the course of true love was lost in the rocks which is why she was in London and I was in Manchester. The chicken […]

Pico 3

We are starting to get somewhere. First 2 kilo miche in the new oven. I sort of feel that 2K is the proper size for a loaf and anything less is a bit puny. You get the right ratio of crust to crumb, it keeps for ever with the flavours developing, it has gravitas. Of […]

Pico 2

Week Two with the Pico – continuing the search for serious results. Nina’s Bread with Dark Beer (940g dough weight, strong bread 63%, rye 31%, spelt 6%, hydration 66% (Guinness 52%/Water 14%)) https://thepartisanbaker.com/ninas-bread-with-dark-beer/ – the rye and spelt %’s are swapped in the original formula. At last, a loaf that’s starting to look like my […]

Howdy, Howdy New Oven

Eight weeks after I paid the dosh to Tom Chandley, a loaded pallet fell to earth on the road beside the gate. Either the pallet wasn’t made for the gate or the gate wasn’t made for the pallet. Quite apart from which I’m no longer fit for lifting heavy and awkward weights. It started to […]

Bye Bye Oven

The baker’s decline. A few week’s back it was the mixer moving off to a new life in Sarah Thornber’s bakery in the West Midlands. But this is the big one – the oven. The much maligned Turbofan (you can’t bake sourdough in a convection oven) has relentlessly churned out thousands and thousands of loaves […]

Bara Planc – Crumb Shot

Bara Planc 2006/2011/2021

Someone called Ben in Llanberis emailed me asking if I had any tips for making sourdough Bara Planc (sounded like he was doing all right without my help already). Bara Planc is a traditional Welsh yeasted griddle bread, “planc” meaning bakestone in some parts of the country. Just to confuse you further, a bakestone is […]

Bread Matters

Back in 2000 I did a weekend Bread Matters course with Andrew Whitley at the Village Bakery in Melmerby, Cumbria. Funny things courses. You often don’t get what you wanted but you get something you hadn’t thought about. What I got was the opportunity to compare where I was at with the other people baking […]

Tecs-Mex II

Rosca de Camarones en Escabeche – Prawns & Rice Ring with Red Chile Sauce. Not bad for a Tuesday lunch. Great thing about this is you can serve it hot with Salsa Adobada (dried chile sauce) or cold with a Salsa Tipica (fresh tomato sauce). Handy to have a choice in a British summer.