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. […]

I reckon that “fast food” is extremely hard to get right. It’s widely derided as being unhealthy and the fast route to obesity. But, when you consider the basic ingredients, it doesn’t have to be like that and can produce very fine, simple, relaxed food – different to the dreaded “fine dining” … Consider the […]

AKA 4 Baguettes. You might well ask why, if you’re retired, you have to draw a line through the calendar and call it a holiday when you’re not even planning on going anywhere. If you do ask you’re obviously not retired. The need arose and a line was drawn through this very week. Miracle No […]

Baguettes are the fast food of baking. They are not serious breads – you don’t expect them to develop with age. They’re about the only bread that can be served warm from the oven because that’s as good as they’re going to get. Having said that, now there’s only two of us to bake for, […]

In the mid noughties Dan Lepard had a huge influence on home bread baking in the UK and beyond. The forum on his website was a lively collection of learning bakers sharing ideas, and his 2005 book, The Handmade Loaf, could fairly be described as “the book that started a baking revolution” as it is […]

Burger King are right. So I made some. Maybe they could do the same … Formula

Life is pretty easy when you have no judges but yourself and you know how to recover from mistakes. This dough was supposed to be Mixed Wheat Roman Style pizza which goes:Wholemeal Wheat 70%, Spelt 20%, Rye 10%. Liquids in the mixing bowl followed by the flours. But, mistook the Rye box for the Wholemeal […]

Top to bottom: Guacamole, Pork/Onion Braise, Rice & Chickpeas, Enchilada Sauce, Texas Wheat Tortillas, Lettuce, Pickled Red Onions, Jalepeños Pickle, Grated Cheese, Soured Cream. Glad I wasn’t washing up as well …

So, last post we concluded that what I had been calling 85% extraction was actually 72.4%. Doesn’t make any difference to anyone else but I like to know what I’m doing. It is not easy learning about grain and milling. For a start, I’ve decided I should stick with Adam Leonti’s Flour Lab book so […]