Burgers

I know we’ve been here before but, last week I made near perfect burgers. I reckon that a lot more skill goes into fast foods like fish & chips, pizzas and hamburgers than turning out something long-in-the-cooking like coq au vin. With burgers all the individual elements, the bun, the patty, the garnishes (not to […]

Becws Pesda – Last Gasp

Anyone want to buy a deck oven: Or a prover/retarder: Or the canopy/extract for the deck oven. Someone, believed to be a charity shop, has applied for the lease of the bakery in Bethesda. Sounds like most of the equipment that hasn’t already walked away is going to be put in storage for “other projects” […]

Happy Happy

Guess what day it is today. No, I know it’s Guy Fawkes but us Papes don’t think that’s funny. It’s my starter’s official birthday – 14 today! I say official because it was obviously developing before but it’s first real outing was a 2K Classic I made for a friend’s birthday in 1999 and I […]

Madscrattenbrot

Madscrattenbrot – a variation of Paul Merry’s Normandy Cider Rye made with Jay’s cider and our cox’s apples. The chopped apples were simmered for a minute once the cider had come to the boil. Click https://thepartisanbaker.com/2012/11/25/mad-scratters/ to see Jay & Joe in action last November.

Product Development

Bet you’ve often wondered about the rigorous scientific process we go through in designing a new bread. Phone rings just as I’m opening a bottle of wine. Shall I answer it? Naaaah. Probably just Laithewaites again asking for Mrs Wilson. My latest reply is, she’s in rehab. Little later think, I wonder if someone’s died? […]

Da – daaaaaa!

Never mind the royal Boy George, this is my new baby and I can assure you it has been christened. 36 quid in advance sales – only £764 to go to break even.

Intermission

They say that the two most stressful situations in life are moving home and the breakdown of a relationship. They have never sat waiting for a book to come back from the printers. I don’t mean from the publishers. I mean when you’ve put up your own money, it’s all your own work, there’s no […]

Logs

I don’t believe them but they’re forecasting heavy snow in November. No harm in taking chances though so I phone up our log merchant and place an order. Of course, our log merchant, is the multi-talented Jay Butters of Trefriw (these are just off-cuts from his boomerang production) so he also brings: in addition to […]

Pâte Fermentée

Never really got the hang of pâte fermentée (the addition of a proportion of mature dough to a new dough). If a recipe calls for it I put it in but without really thinking it through. Is it to add flavour to a commercially yeasted dough or a hang over from when old dough was […]

Wholemeal

You can’t beat good old wholemeal for a basic loaf with flavour. Come and do a bread course in sunny Snowdonia. Of course, Rick would throw me to the bread police for using a white starter but it’s as wholemeal as I get.