bethesdabakin’5 – Part One

Strangely enough, even though I was there through every minute of the setting up, the event and the clearing up, I feel as though I missed everything that happened during the Bethesdabakin’5 weekend. That’s not to say I didn’t have a great time with other people having a great time baking in the sunshine, and […]

Brioche

You already bought my book, Bethesdabasics, so you know I do a sort of poor-man’s brioche, Brioche au fromage de brebis aux figues. It’s not as artery-hardening as the classic French brioche which is awash with butter and eggs but it’s still light with a buttery taste. (You haven’t bought the book yet? Strike now […]

Bethesdabakin’5 – Executive Summary

Thursday Friday a.m. Friday p.m., Saturday, Sunday, Monday a.m. Monday p.m. That went quick.

This is Not About French Bread Books

As usual when we were in France in May we found and excuse (three times) to take the journey up to Bordeaux for a visit to Mollat, one of the world’s great bookshops, a drink outside the Utopia cinema and lunch at La Tupina. With one exception, the bread books have been very disappointing in […]

Happiness isn’t …

You wouldn’t believe how little trouble customers are. Most of them are actually life enhancing in all sorts of ways. But there’s the odd one where nothing is ever straightforward and you know that any contact means trouble. There’s a woman locally who organises occasional dining events and even more occasionally orders bread. When we […]

Happiness is …

No they’re not mine. The other week an old internet friend of mine, Helen, got in touch with me. We go right back to the days of Andrew Whitley’s Bread Matters forum, about 10 years ago, but we’ve been out of touch for ages. Suddenly she pops up again having poked around the old haunts […]

A Bit of News

Well, not much really. At the moment my life seems totally taken up with baking and organising Bethesdabakin’5, the fifth of our annual baking events, which is now only two weeks away. So maybe in a couple of weeks time I will become normal again. Maybe. In the meantime here is a photo of what […]

Free Book

Get a copy of Bethesdabasics absolutely free!! The second hundred copies of Bethesdabasics came in two boxes. There are “a few” copies – say between 3-5 – in the bottom of box number one, so the last copy in the box will mark 150 copies sold. Except that whoever pays for the 150th copy will […]

Bread No. 2

The second loaf baked here in Arcachon in the tin box oven is a 2K Classic. Just a half-and-half mix of T65 Organic supermarket flour and T130 farine de blé intégral soft wheat flour. That’s a good 5-6 inches of crumb rather badly hacked about by a blunt chef’s knife (the owner has returned from […]

Pain Bonne Chance

Starter Preparation Day One: Evening mix and overnight in the fridge Day Two: Pack in case. Taxi to Bangor, train to Bath, overnight in case. Day Three: Bus to Bristol Airport, in aircraft hold to Bordeaux, taxi to Arcachon, overnight in fridge. Day Four: In fridge (on 01 May in France everything is closed, no […]