Sigtebrot

Another collaboration with my Danish friend Nina from way back. This time round I substituted half-and-half water and Carrie’s fabulous set ewe’s yoghurt for the buttermilk and used wholemeal rye. Usual method (hand mix, 10 kneads x 3 at 5 minute intervals, 4 hours bulk, 3½ hours proof. Bake 50 minutes at your usual bread […]

Pain Grand-pÈre

Legs, the cat who moved in shortly after I started the microbakery in 2007, finally died and we burried her under the apple tree in the garden. It was just before we celebrated our 47th aniversary of living together and we thought, why not just bugger off to France for a few days? So we […]

Pedigree Bread

Well, if the last loaf was Mongrel Bread, this one must be Pedigree Bread. Similar idea but with prepping. So it’s still a 2 Kilo based on my Classic but this time I’d milled and sieved my grain (Maris Wigeon) and didn’t have to busk it. Sieved Flour: 995g – 85%Bran: 165g – 15%Water: 720g […]

Mongrel Bread

A two kilo loaf makes me feel secure. It’s the proper size for a loaf – or a good starting point anyway. This is a mongrel bread because of circumstances. I’ve been very sloppy of late milling and sieving flour but I thought my tub of wholemeal pretty well stocked. So I set out to […]

Recent Bakes 18.09.23

I called this 4bags because I was intending to bake four baguettes but a bit of kitchen congestion led me to shape it as a single loaf. Campagne dough + about 15% bran – would have been scaled at 200g. Nina’s Bread with Dark Beer – a gem of a loaf from Nina in Denmark. […]

Burgers!

I reckon that “fast food” is extremely hard to get right. It’s widely derided as being unhealthy and the fast route to obesity. But, when you consider the basic ingredients, it doesn’t have to be like that and can produce very fine, simple, relaxed food – different to the dreaded “fine dining” … Consider the […]

Miracle Bread

AKA 4 Baguettes. You might well ask why, if you’re retired, you have to draw a line through the calendar and call it a holiday when you’re not even planning on going anywhere. If you do ask you’re obviously not retired. The need arose and a line was drawn through this very week. Miracle No […]

Baguettes Have Their Place

Baguettes are the fast food of baking. They are not serious breads – you don’t expect them to develop with age. They’re about the only bread that can be served warm from the oven because that’s as good as they’re going to get. Having said that, now there’s only two of us to bake for, […]

Dan Lepard – Influencer?

In the mid noughties Dan Lepard had a huge influence on home bread baking in the UK and beyond. The forum on his website was a lively collection of learning bakers sharing ideas, and his 2005 book, The Handmade Loaf, could fairly be described as “the book that started a baking revolution” as it is […]

Real Buns Taste Better

Burger King are right. So I made some. Maybe they could do the same … Formula