As well as the crucial matter of pressing the apples, another reason Gill & Jay invited a couple of friends over for the weekend is they are setting up a new microbakery and the equipment is in place! Unlike my stumbling into bakedom an additional kilo of flour at a time, Jay has actually done […]

Who but Jay would have so many boomerangs he can spare some for kindling? However, let’s start with the cider as I always suggest when I’m at Jays. Who but Jay would have a Romany caravan full of apples? One of the main aims of the weekend was to get his apples into liquid form […]

This weekend there’s a little gathering at Gill & Jay’s in Trefriw – not sure the percentage of cidermaking to baking but that’s what we’re doing. Just to be efficient I got my baking in first. Thursday was Thanksgiving so the famous Bethesdabakers Thanksgiving bread had to be produced for the American customers who also […]

One thing that cheers me up is getting feedback from students. Couple of weekends back Richard Beaston cashed in his Christmas present (last year’s!) – a baking course voucher bought by his obviously discerning partner. Here’s the picture of his first bread back home after the course. Can you argue with that?

Not again, I hear you say. Old Mick trotting out yet another photo of a 2 Kilo Pain de Campagne. But no, this is different, honest. And it introduces a radical new fermentation technique which I am calling “Fragmentation”. Busy weekend. Guy called Richard came to do a bread course which his partner had bought […]

As a home baker, your job is to produce one perfect loaf which you photograph and wonder if your slashes could have been more assured and if you could have got slightly  better oven spring if you’d lobbed a couple more links of red hot chain into the water tray at the bottom of your […]

My latest kitchen toy is a dehydrator. So while the starter was been being built, this has been put to use drying out slices of apple from the tree – mainly the good bits of damaged fruit. Having dried them they were rehydrated in Weston’s finest Henry Weston cider which also made up about half […]

Right, all bets are off (see previous post): That was after about 28 hours. It rose nearly to the arch in the glass before I went to bed. By morning it had fallen back and has now been refreshed at 1:1:1 (starter:water:flour by weight). To be continued.

Remember Woolworths? A lot of years ago I bought Sue an apple tree as a valentine from Woolworths and brought it back on the bus from Bangor. Produces lovely sharp Coxes some of which we keep till New Year to use in Faisin a la Normande. Our neighbours provide the pheasants. Anyway, Marcus was recently […]