Pain Quotidien #256bis

This is why we make bread. Right now, as well as my regular slot with Gert (he’s doing Belgium next week …?), I’m doing a consultancy/product development thing for a baker on Anglesey who, ever since he swallowed a handful of black olives on a trip to Egypt thinking they were grapes, has loathed the […]

Pain Quotidien #256

“I’ll have five of whatever you’re baking next week,” says Gert. “Anything at the back of your mind?” “Well, maybe something with onions. And maybe olives. And perhaps some rosemary.” “How about Onion, Olive & Rosemary Bread?”

HCBs

This time it’s Stig’s fault. She emailed and asked if I had a Hot Cross Bun recipe and I thought Sue really likes them and I haven’t made any for years and I’ve been a bit of an old ratbag recently so I better make some myself. Saturday morning and I haven’t refreshed my starter […]

Black Stuff/Pugliese

Forgot to put up the crumb shots: And this week for Gert some snarley, adolescent pugliese: They are fantastic – like petrified logs.

Der Black Stuff

Has to be one of my favourite breads – Nils’ Guinness Volkornbrot. It’s not really worth making in ones but Gert’s cooking German this week and ordered five and Steffi next door is on cat duty this weekend so that’s another one, plus one for me which makes seven – then there’s the runt because […]

Bethesdabakin’ – An Overview

It always has to be someone else’s fault. In this case it’s young Marcus Row. We’ve been muttering probably for a couple of years about trying to pull together the individual event blogs and creating a single point where all the information about Bethesdabakin’ past and present could be accessed. So he snaffled the web […]

The Perks of the Job

Sometimes you get feedback that really makes the effort worthwhile. A guy called Mark contacted me from an airbase in Turkey asking about the books, in particular the pdf’s. It took about four exchanges of emails and each time it took a couple of weeks. I started to think he was taking the piss (I […]

Bijoux Bake Illustrated

A few photos from our weekend in Caernarfon. It was a weekend of experimentation, six bakers trying things out and, more often than not, saying it wasn’t quite right. And the first shall be last: Stig did a rescue job on a couple of barms, one beer, one from the dregs of Jay’s most excellent […]

Bijoux Bake

Who’s the only person who would invent a raspberry dough containing a chocolate egg – and be sure the formula would actually work? Yes, Joe Firebeard is in attendance here at the first ever bethesdabakinbijoux in Caernarfon. It’s Sunday morning and the troups are looking a little battle-weary, to be perfectly honest, and it’s not […]

Bethesdabakinbijoux

Heard the one about the barrister, the charity CEO and the tree surgeon? Since Albert Smith let slip he had done a course with me on the Food Programme we’ve had hundreds of new readers hitting the blog. Some of you won’t be familiar with Bethesdabakin’ the annual baking weekend we started in 2007. This […]