Well, four baguettes was the intention. Mixed the dough yesterday morning for 4 x 200g bags. Should have shaped and proved about 2.00 p.m. and baked about 5.30 p.m. which was about the time I thought maybe it should be put into an induced coma in the fridge because Life had intervened. 440g is the […]

A unique present for the (Welsh speaking) baker in your life Back in 2010 I wrote one of the first exclusively sourdough baking books in the UK. Two years later I had it translated into Welsh as Bara Blas and to date, as far as I can ascertain, it is still the only Welsh language […]

Sunday Lunch – who needs it? (Well, the roast beef and Yorkshire pudding variety). Yesterday Sue did a fabulous pork joint, slow roast with orange and cumin from Moro Easy. Today I took advantage of the considerable remains to do a deep pan pizza of Peter Reinhart, Philly-style Roast Pork with Broccoli (except I substituted […]

Doreen Duvall, on the Microbakery Connection page, asked about Bakery gift cards. I’m sure this will be no help whatsoever but it reminded me of a situation I once faced. A few years back when I was baking for sale I ran individual two-day courses for people who wanted to learn sourdough. Particularly in the […]

“Chapelure” means breadcrumbs. My French is a sad collection of words without any connecting grammar often arising from situations we have found ourselves in. Like “fuite” – leak, “ne marche pas” – doesn’t work, “epingle de suritee” – safety pin. Chapelure is one that comes from struggling through French cookery books. There are ALWAYS cars […]

Another collaboration with my Danish friend Nina from way back. This time round I substituted half-and-half water and Carrie’s fabulous set ewe’s yoghurt for the buttermilk and used wholemeal rye. Usual method (hand mix, 10 kneads x 3 at 5 minute intervals, 4 hours bulk, 3½ hours proof. Bake 50 minutes at your usual bread […]

Legs, the cat who moved in shortly after I started the microbakery in 2007, finally died and we burried her under the apple tree in the garden. It was just before we celebrated our 47th aniversary of living together and we thought, why not just bugger off to France for a few days? So we […]

Well, if the last loaf was Mongrel Bread, this one must be Pedigree Bread. Similar idea but with prepping. So it’s still a 2 Kilo based on my Classic but this time I’d milled and sieved my grain (Maris Wigeon) and didn’t have to busk it. Sieved Flour: 995g – 85%Bran: 165g – 15%Water: 720g […]

A two kilo loaf makes me feel secure. It’s the proper size for a loaf – or a good starting point anyway. This is a mongrel bread because of circumstances. I’ve been very sloppy of late milling and sieving flour but I thought my tub of wholemeal pretty well stocked. So I set out to […]

I called this 4bags because I was intending to bake four baguettes but a bit of kitchen congestion led me to shape it as a single loaf. Campagne dough + about 15% bran – would have been scaled at 200g. Nina’s Bread with Dark Beer – a gem of a loaf from Nina in Denmark. […]