Isn’t it lovely I can say that because I didn’t bake it. It was Jay, soon-to-be-professional-baker, who popped in for the empties a couple of days back and dropped off a loaf. Jay (surname Butters) says his kids think the bakery should be called “Bread & Butters” – I think “Butters the Bread” is better. […]

Gert’s just trying to be different this week – the menu is Welsh. Seaweed I said? Two years ago I created Warburton’s Grand Slam in honour of Wales great victory. Just in case that means nothing to you, the game is rugby, the series is the Six Nations and Wales beat every other nation in […]

If you follow this blog you willl know, 1. I bake a small batch weekly for Gert, a Dutch chef whose menus range the world settling in each location for one week only, and that, 2. he translated a series of eight weird Dutch sourdough recipes that I’m slowly working through. Let us say they […]

You’re right, I’ve been a bit quiet of late. But that’s better than posting stuff for the sake of it. Apart from the Big Gig, which I shall get round to writing about, it’s been a little procession of nice students on bread courses – and they’ve all been local for a change. First there […]

More free education from Bethesdabakers. Does stretching and folding the dough during fermentation have any noticeable effect? Two identical white sourdoughs at 65% hydration: The dough on the right was stretched and folded three times every hour for the first three hours of a four hour fermentation. After four hours: When they were shaped the […]

I’m doing product development work for a craft baker who wants to introduce a new line of quality breads.  He’s successfully producing his first sourdoughs but wants to see more  impressive bubbles in the crumb. Obviously I’m aware that pushing up hydration is a way of achieving this but I’d never actually put it to […]

First off, Happy Birthday Louis Armstrong, the greatest jazz trumpeter ever, born this day 1900. So we are working our way through the Hot Fives & Sevens – the bakery is jumping while I knock out a variety of bread and a bunch of baguettes for a wedding Gert is doing tomorrow. The amazing thing […]

Thank you Maggie. Back at Bethesdabakin’ at Mair’s Bakehouse she gave me a recipe for Zwiebelkuchen, onion cake so I could make it for my neighbour Steffi’s mum when she came over from Germany to visit. Steffi’s mum duly arrived and I think I can say the Ziebelkuchen turned out pretty well.

A lot of people tried out Seigle d’Auvergne from Dan Leader’s Local Breads after it came out in 2007. It was almost like a benchmark of authenticity. Americans seem to have too much reverence for European authenticity – I know that’s a shocking generalisation but that’s the way it can feel. Anyway, he presented this […]