Still on the Shelf

I thought I might as well cut it:

On the Shelf

When the Bethesda quarrymen built this little house in the 1840s they very conveniently included a shelf in the slate porch around the front door for taking bread shots even though the camera was only just about being born at that time and bakers’ yeast hadn’t been developed. It is most convenient on baking days […]

Paris, France

Just back from a few days in Paris. North Wales would have been proud of the rainfall there last weekend. Interesting question. We all (well I certainly did) grew up in awe of the great French boulangers. I can remember my little heart thumping the first time I walked up the rue du Cherche Midi […]

River Festival

It’s a bit of a knackering and nerve-wracking time for an old chap like myself. The book arrived back from the printers on Thursday and it looks great – but that doesn’t stop it being scary. Plus this weekend was the Gwyl Afon Ogwen River Festival organised by Pam and Jeremy, official artists in residence […]

Wholemeal & Honey

That Marcus, he’s not a bad lad, but he can’t break his yeast habit After he baked his Wheat Beer & Red Onion for customers when he did a course with me I appropriated it straight into the repertoire. And as he had seemed pretty pleased with his wholemeal & honey recipe I thought that […]

A Present from Legs

You remember Legs Lazarus, Bethesdabakers own Homeland Security: Well, Legs has been doing her job protecting the borders and this morning presented us with this: A baby rat. Not sure why this made me think of Marcus but here is yesterday’s Wheat Beer (although it was actually proper Czech Budweiser) and Red Onion bread: Two […]

Coca

Finally got round to buying Claudia Roden’s Food of Spain. Don’t need a new cook book but she’s too good to ignore. Especially when I heard she’d got coca recipes in it. Coca is one of those mysterious breads that I never quite believe I have got right because I’ve never seen an authentic one. […]

The Birthday Present

New departure. Last week Oliver came up from Birmingham to do what is basically my new (post “retirement”) microbakery course. Except he doesn’t want to set up a microbakery, and he came to do it … for PLEASURE!!! Hope no one’s feeling too shocked about this. I happened to be browsing the Australian Sourdough site […]

SF Sourdough

Getting a lot of people coming on courses wanting to get into small scale professional baking at the moment – do I have to thank George Osborne and his economic policies for this? Anyway I have Vicky coming up for a couple of days next week. I offer students the option of scaling up one […]

Choc

Some pictures of Chocolate Brioche to make you drool while you wait for me to say something intelligent and informative (some chance). If you’ve bought my book, just modify the savoury brioche recipe by adding a little honey. Cut chocolate into small, chunky pieces and cover the dough with the before you roll it up […]