Yes, you do recognise the face lurking behind the focaccia. It’s Rick, in Bethesda, last Friday. The 14th annual Bethesdabakin’ weekend should have taken place at Rick & Maggie’s 17th of last month. But, of course, Covid … Sue and I have been self-isolating, Rick and Maggie have been self-isolating, we absolutely trust each other […]

Some of yesterday’s bread. Straight 100% Wholemeal Wheat (if you exclude the white starter). Don’t think you can beat basic breads. Oat & Honey. One of the stars of the repertoire. Focaccia Yr Ardd Fadarch (The Mushroom Garden). The star of the show – I honestly think this is my best bread ever. Cynan’s fabulous […]

A photo record of today’s bake which of course takes more than one day to achieve. The focaccia dough has already been in the fridge for two days. This seemingly innocent picture is perhaps the most important of all. It’s called prepping. Yesterday the butternut squash was gently roast with olive oil and a scattering […]

Suddenly, at this late stage in my baking career, I find myself in need of extra 500g proving baskets. You think flour is hard to get hold of in the midst of the pandemic? You want to try proving baskets. After the best part of a day chasing round the net trying to find baskets […]

This is mainly aimed at users of the Sourdough UK Facebook group many of whom are new-comers to sourdough and are clearly confused by conflicting advice. This is a Pain de Campagne (white sourdough) I baked yesterday. It is the simplest but most perfect of breads. The method: I fed my starter the night before. […]

Deep pan pizza or focaccia? Don’t really care. It’s fun to play around with. You can even eat it. I tend to knock up 1600g of 80% hydration dough and put it in the fridge for at least a couple of days. Then I have pizza dough available when I want it and the rest […]

I used to bake for our good friend, Gert, who very unfairly died last year back in the Netherlands (full story here). One reason he was fun to work with was every week his menus changed countries and even continents and the bread was supposed to reflect that week’s culture. Amongst his papers he found […]

Always handy to have a few tricks up your sleeve. Our neighbour Steffi did a bit of shopping for us now Coronavirus has driven us old-and-underlying indoors so I offered to make her some bread. Was a little surprised at the face she pulled until I discovered gluten was having a bad effect on her. […]

What can you say? This is Osian 18 years old, ‘A’ Levels coming up and about to take on the world. Ran a bread course for him last weekend. What stops you in your tracks (and makes you feel very old) is that he can remember coming with his parents to collect bread and having […]

A minimum of publicity before Christmas has brought me seven courses to arrange in the next few weeks for lucky people given course vouchers by partners and family. Done one already this week, another starting in two days – how am I going to fit in my self-assessment tax returns in time? With the exception […]