Been baking mini-baguettes of late – all part of adapting to being a mere domestic baker again (even if it has been 18 months already). Great for breakfast; crisp and chewy. And you all know how to revive an aging baguette? Heat the oven to max, run the baguette under the cold tap, bake for […]

Sometimes things are less than perfect but still have their good points. Yet another post lock-down event – Sue’s long standing reading group, who have kept going for the last two years on Zoom, finally had a face-to-face celebration on Saturday with a lunch gathering in Annie’s garden. Amazingly the weather behaved for the duration. […]

As you might have noticed, I’m trying not to let you forget we had a few days in Paris last month. Day Two, Sue’s birthday we had lunch at the excellent Brasserie Balzar. There is a reason I didn’t crop the Pharmacie out of the photo. We were walking up the appropriately named rue de […]

The days from Saturday 14 May were momentous for us. Having hardly stuck our noses out of the door for two years we took buses to Caernarfon for the Food Festival, went to the Newen Afrobeat gig in Bethesda that evening (still don’t quite believe it happened), and by the end of the week we […]

I have a problem with reading instructions which partly dates from the time I realised bread baking is basically pretty simple and, if you have a method that works for you, you can apply it to virtually any bread formula that comes your way. No point in adopting a new method for each and every […]

The spectacular looking Couronne Bordelaise is quite easy to make if you have a couronne banneton and know a couple of tricks. Unless you are a specialist baker (in Bordeaux) you wouldn’t expect to shift much in terms of volume but the odd one would look great as a centrepiece if you were catering for […]

Raisin Challah – an old friend. This one made with duck eggs. Kev (another old friend) brought the duck eggs so he shall have a loaf.

2 kilos – when bread starts to become real. Mick’s Classic Sourdough – half-and-half bread flour/wholemeal. 2,150g dough; 250C top, 220C bottom; 15 mins steam; 65 minutes total bake.

The search for Pinsa continues. Marc Vetri’s Mastering Pizza contains a sort of self-assemby formula for Pinsa. By this I mean he gives you a basic formula and method for yeasted 80% Al Taglio dough and then gives you several pages of variations, Whole Grain Al Taglio, Sourdough Whole Grain Al Taglio until we arrive […]

– but not a bad start. Us aged and vulnerable people have taken our first couple of local excursions since lock-down in the past two or three weeks. A couple of OK meals that leave you longing for something special – at least more special than you can make yourself at home. My baking mate, […]