BBGA Calendar

As you know I got a photo printed in last year’s Bread Bakers Guild of America calendar so this year I have to go for it again. I’m not taking any chances so I’m sending a few and, as a special treat, I’ll let you have a sneak preview (in case none are chosen). Here’s […]

Thomasina Miers on Sourdough

Only just noticed (all right, Sue has been trying to get me to read it all week) but Thomasina Miers gave a recipe for panzanella in last Saturday’s Guardian. Her introduction contains the most succinct and unfussy description of why you should eat sourdough. Click here to view. Guess what we’re having for lunch?

Handsome Chaps

Yellow Mustard Seed Wholemeal Wheat. Simple is best.

Onion, Rosemary & Mustard Seed

Onion, Rosemary & Yellow Mustard Seed Loaf dematerialising.

Hang on Marcus

Three litres. New scotch bonnets fermented five weeks. Special consignment of Jay Butters’ cider vinegar delivered by son Rob. Fortified with previous vintages. Sorry Marcus. At least another four weeks before it can be broached. Better next year.

Write it Down!

That’s what I tell myself. You know all too well that you won’t remember the changes you made to a bread formula next time you come to use it so WRITE IT DOWN! My sister Anne is coming to Bethesda with her husband Andrew this weekend for his birthday celebration. Quite understandably he decided years […]

Borodinski

Two little Borodinski’s should have been baked yesterday. Eleven o’clock last night, after four and a half hours with no discernible movement, I left them out over night. Seven thirty this morning I was amazed they hadn’t collapsed. Fifteen minutes at 240C, thirty five minutes at 180C, twenty minutes de-tinned in a cooling oven door […]

Leftovers

Why is it that if you want a decent pizza you have to make it yourself? Maybe it’s different in big London but then I’m told the the streets are paved with gold down there too. Round here they seem to think that a wood-burning oven = good pizza but they turn out a topping […]

The Morning After

In the Sunday morning light amongst the baking debris sits a lone Pain de Campagne. So what? you may say. We’ve seen hundreds of your campagnes before. But behind this picture lies a sorry story of dough abuse. Two events were coinciding. Bob from Ruthin had booked a sourdough course with me Friday afternoon/Saturday to […]

Multiple Choice Question

This is a rather fine Cheese, Roast Garlic and Black Pepper Bread using one of Carrie Rimes fabulous ewes cheeses – http://www.cosyn.cymru/en/home/ But should I: 1. buy an oven with more space between the racks; 2. buy bigger tins; 3. reduce the amount of dough; or 4. hang Christmas decorations from the overhangs?