bread

How to bake French-style brioche bread

April 12, 2013
French brioche bread

Baking bread. It sneaks up on you. It starts slowly, just a little experiment, maybe a curious attempt at a simple loaf. Nothing out of the ordinary, just flour, salt, yeast, water and time. You find that it works. It works better than you could ever dare believe it’d work. Your bread tastes real, substantial, [...]

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Bathuras, or fried fermented Indian flatbreads

January 14, 2013
Bathura, or Indian yoghurt fermented deep fried flatbread

I have this theory about Indian restaurants. It may be a Yorkshire thing, or maybe even just a Bradford or Leeds thing, or perhaps its just me, but I reckon you can judge the quality of an Indian restaurant through a combination of how good their breads are and whether or not you get a [...]

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How to make croissants

May 5, 2012
how to make croissants

They look so complicated, with their elegant crescent shape and proudly airy layers of rich pastry, tightly curled up and falling over one another. Breaking one open sends a shower of buttery flakes everywhere and leaves your fingers satisfyingly greasy. Surely, this type of baking is the preserve of the professional? Or the French? But, [...]

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How to make parathas

April 28, 2012
How to make Indian or Pakistani parathas, enriched unleavened Asian flatbreads

A while ago, I spent some time in India, travelling around Rajasthan and the north of the country.  We ended up in the town of Jaiselmer, deep in the Rajasthani scrublands, a place that feels like the very edge of the world. The big tourist thing to do in Jaiselmer is to hire a guide [...]

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On why I bake bread

April 8, 2012
On the spiritual art of making bread

I made a couple of sourdough loaves yesterday. They started out the night before in a mixing bowl, a ladleful of starter mixed with flour and water. More flour in the morning, salt, kneading, proving, shaping, baking. 24 hours of waiting went into those loaves. Slow food, indeed. This batch was different from the last. [...]

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Starter to loaf – how to make sourdough bread

January 28, 2012
How to make sourdough bread, from starter to loaf

Bread is the most elemental of food. It’s just flour, water, yeast and salt, and, in it’s most basic form, that’s it. Go ahead and embellish it however you want, but a basic loaf is the stuff of life itself. But, what if you were to go one step more fundamental, and use your own [...]

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Apple bread, baking for cold weather

November 26, 2011
Apple bread, from Roast Figs, Sugar Snow: Food to Warm the Soul by Diana Henry

It’s nearly December, so all the apples are in and off the trees now.  That leaves an annual problem…dealing with gluts. Luckily, I don’t have any gluts to deal with, but I do have friends who need to deal with theirs, leading to a slight over-abundance of Bramley apples.  Apple pie? Too predictable.  Baked apples? [...]

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How to make a French baguette

August 17, 2011
How to make a French stick

There’s little more evocative of France, more French in itself, than the baguette. The sight of people walking quickly home before breakfast, a still-warm baguette tucked firmly under their arm is a common one, such is the baguette’s place in French life. British-style white-sliced bread stands no chance in France. There’s tradition involved – no [...]

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