SF Sourdough

Getting a lot of people coming on courses wanting to get into small scale professional baking at the moment – do I have to thank George Osborne and his economic policies for this? Anyway I have Vicky coming up for a couple of days next week. I offer students the option of scaling up one […]

Choc

Some pictures of Chocolate Brioche to make you drool while you wait for me to say something intelligent and informative (some chance). If you’ve bought my book, just modify the savoury brioche recipe by adding a little honey. Cut chocolate into small, chunky pieces and cover the dough with the before you roll it up […]

Asian Fusion?

So I said to Gert, Chef/Proprietor of Oren in Caernarfon, “What you doing next week?” (He changes his menu every week) “Sort of Asian Fusion.” he says. “What bread would you like?” “Laputabrot.” Swedish Spiced Laputabrot to give it its full title, packed with golden syrup, sunflower oil, anise and fennel seed. Can’t see the […]

Restored Photo

I think I’ve posted this photo before – one of our faithful customers Carys’ picture of baking at the family farm near Bala in the 50s – with the little lamb at the front and the Live Chicks boxes at the back – a true Environmental Health Officers nightmare. Well, I honestly am very close […]

Yet Another …

So to round off the week I found something ominous under the bed. Like a lot of things in our life, the bed is a bit improvised. It started life as a futon from Habitat (remember Habitat) – very smart, low with elm slats and two red futon mattresses. During the day it was a […]

And Another Thing

It’s obviously one of those weeks – except this time let’s name names. You see that curly bit that looks like one of those contraptions they have at garden fetes where you have to move a metal ring on a handle along a twisted rod without touching it. If you get to the end you […]

A Couple of Things

I’ve been thinking about this for a while and I think it falls right into the TBoB principle. Crap !: I sent a copy of the book of to a small company who market baking equipment to (mainly) home bakers – I’m not naming names but there aren’t that many about – to ask if […]

Evolution

“Evolution, Mama, Evolution, Mama, Don’t you make a monkey out of me” as the song goes. Some people learn by working their way from one end of a book like Jeffrey Hamelman’s “Bread”to the other. I’m not knocking this approach and it’s an excellent book but I tend to develop by stealing ideas from less […]

Microbakery Courses

Just finished running the first of my new style two-day, individual courses for people who want to set up a microbakery at home. New style because now I’m “retired”. “Retired” means that instead of having 9 varieties of bread in a number of different weights and knocking out around 90 loaves, I select one dough […]

Broa de Milho 1

Jeremy and Azelia have both covered Broa, the Portugese corn bread. Making a bread you have no experience of is tricky because you have no benchmarks and especially when it involves making a porridge of maize where the hydration can vary so much. This one comes from The Taste of Portugal by Edite Vieira, a […]