This Bakers Life No. 277

On the eve of my 64th birthday senility raised its ugly head or at least gave me a hard stare over the parapet. I have a spread sheet calculator that works out quantities for the day’s bake, so the ingredient weights for each dough are detailed on a printed worksheet. The weight of starter for […]

A Real Baker

Azélia wants to know why I say I’m not a real baker? One of my talents is annoying people – I don’t have to try, it just comes naturally. I think there is a lot of bullshit talked about baking and particularly sourdough baking and I have a habit of saying so. Where can you […]

2nd Generation

This will worry some of you. There are two of us. The bread bug has spread to the next generation. This is one of my nephews, Tobias, who was bought a copy of Bethesdabasics by my youngest sister, Helen, and is now producing sourdough. Might have some way to go but not bad for a […]

Mixing It

It’s a paradox. Because I’m basically a lazy person I do lots of hand kneading. I have a spiral mixer which is pretty good with 14K of dough but not so good with 4K. It’s got a fixed bowl and at the end of the day I hate getting down to clean the thing. In […]

Just add water …

While we’re doing snippets, try this. Imagine the scenario. You are a smart young thing wanting to impress. You have an important dinner party coming up at the weekend and need to knock ’em dead. If only I knew how to make my own sourdough, you think, that would show them. Then on the shelves […]

Sweet Things

I’ve been just a bit busy and now when I’m not baking I’m doing my tax returns. So here’s some pix to keep you going. I don’t do a lot of sweet things but: My Christmas bread was a Brioche Provencale, followed at Epiphany by Mexican Three Kings Bread: And this week, Oren, the restaurant […]

Rum by gum

Phil Joy asked for the recipe for the rum punch that I knocked up at the Dales Dough Do and I thought, why shouldn’t everyone get the benefit of my tireless research? It was a Barbados Rum Punch. The basic measures for rum punches go 1, 2, 3, 4 – 1 of sour, 2 of […]

Not in my backyard II

Well, a customer who happens to work in Llangefni volunteered to be our spy, went along to the public sale, and very kindly delivered a big bag of bread to our door. I’ve been advised by my brief to say nothing ’til he arrives. But the camera doesn’t lie. You see the camera-facing crumb in […]

Not in my backyard!

Well, near enough. Advert from local rag: Anglesey, Island of Abattoires, now has a bread factory full of “French Master Bakers” producing “authentic French bread and pastries” including that well-known French bread, Ciabatta. Check out the website http://www.pvfrance.com Do I feel threatened! Thank god for the Menai Straits. Mick

Overheard …

… on Bangor High Street last weekend. Very large tough looking man hand-in-hand with tiny daughter in pink tutu, “No, parrots fly, pirates don’t”.