Santes (Saint) Dwynwen is the Welsh patron saint of lovers and her saint’s day is this Thursday 25 January. This is a bit weird because she spent most of her life as a nun but not as weird as the rest of the story. Back in the 5th century Dwynwen is deeply in lurve with […]

10 January already. Better crank up the blog. People who have done courses with me are already featuring in the news this year. Three years ago I taught Benjamin Lee and his staff at Becws Mefus, Llangefni, to bake sourdough and went on to do a product development consultancy for him. Since then he has […]

Legs, the bakery pest control officer, was supposed to be announcing the New Year’s greetings to family, bakers and other friends but, as you can see, she is deeply immersed in her new extreme fitness routine. Fortunately she has spent Christmas reading “The Angry Chef – Bad Science and the Truth about Healthy Eating”” by […]

Christmas lunch, first course, got to be simple. Table laid with linen, antique family tablecloth, candles, champagne in the flutes, nice Touraine lined up, Pysgod Mark’s very fine smoked salmon matched with my thinly sliced Borodinski, minimal accompaniments – shards of red onion, a few capers, mildish horseradish sauce. Stuff the turkey …

In Bethesda when you hear a loud knock followed by rapidly departing footsteps, and you open the door to reveal what looks like a brick wrapped in foil and an anonymous looking envelope, you do not phone the Bomb Squad. It’s just the first of the Christmas Bara Briths being delivered by someone who has […]

Yes, yesterday marked Bethesdabakers’ tenth aniversary. I don’t know if that makes us the UK’s longest established home-based bakery but I bet it’s the longest that didn’t end in divorce. So I offered my hard-core customers the flatbread of their choice and suggested they might care to stop by for a small glass of wine. […]

Last of the old; first of the new.

About this time of year Brioche Provencale gets a light covering of (icing sugar) snow, is impaled by a tasteful sprig of plastic holly, and becomes Brioche de Noel. But here it is in it’s unadorned glory: Bread formula will be on the blog shortly.