bread

Starter to loaf – how to make sourdough bread

January 28, 2012 Food & drink

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 [...]

2 comments Read the full article →

Apple bread, baking for cold weather

November 26, 2011 Food & drink

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? [...]

6 comments Read the full article →

How to make a French baguette

August 17, 2011 Food & drink

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 [...]

18 comments Read the full article →

Bagels, step-by-step

March 23, 2011 Food & drink

People often talk about bread making as a bug of some sort that people catch. Well, I’ve definitely caught it, and in an effort to move up a rung on the artisan bread making ladder, I made a batch of bagels. This isn’t a quick recipe. You need to time things carefully so that you’ve [...]

19 comments Read the full article →

How to bake bread

January 9, 2011 Food & drink

A lot of people are scared of baking their own bread. There’s a lot of misconceptions out there: It takes too long – not true. A very decent soda bread can be made in under an hour, start to finish. Granted, a proper loaf needs time for the yeast to work it’s magic, but even [...]

26 comments Read the full article →

Quintessential Americana – the burger

June 29, 2009 Food & drink

Every year I look forward to the Glastonbury Festival.This year we marvelled at the shortness of Lady Gaga’s dress (really, how did she not expose herself), wondered why people listen to Kasabian and decided to do something tenuously food related in honour of Bruce Springsteen*. Something quintessentially American. Something straightforward and honest, no nonsense, down [...]

0 comments Read the full article →

Naan bread

March 21, 2009 Food & drink

No Indian meal, even one made at home, is really complete without a naan bread. Put 450g of strong white flour in a large bowl and add two teaspoons of salt, two teaspoons of caster sugar, a teaspoon of baking powder and a 7g sachet of instant yeast. Make a well in the centre and [...]

0 comments Read the full article →

Sourdough part V

September 14, 2008 Food & drink

After a month of preparation, the time has come to bake some bread. My starter has been bubbling away now for a month and tastes and smells of yeast. Following the Moro recipe, I took 250g of starter and mixed it with 450g of strong white organic flour and 700ml of water. This resulted in [...]

0 comments Read the full article →

Sourdough part IV

September 3, 2008 Food & drink

I normally have some sort of slightly weird cooking project on the go, but these experiments don’t often stretch over four weeks. The saga of the sourdough starter continues, having entered a new and exciting phase last week…the grapes are gone and I’m now carefully feeding the starter up to give it enough strength to [...]

0 comments Read the full article →

← Previous Entries

bread

what’s happened here…