Although the book has been available to download for a few years now, during that time I’ve been busy revising, editing and expanding it. Finally, although I certainly don’t consider it finished, it has reached a stage where I’m willing put it out there and retire the previous, outdated version. Think of the previous draft read more…
I’ve been doing some work behind the scenes on the website (again), which has kept me away from the blog. It’s a lame excuse, I know, so to make up for it here is the result of some experiments over the last few days involving cheesecake. There’s nothing like a good old-fashioned baked cheesecake, a read more…
The question of how much to knead bread dough, and how one can determine how much kneading is ‘enough’, is one that often causes the beginner great angst. There is much to be said on this subject, but it isn’t today’s topic. What I’m interested in here is how much is too much? It’s not read more…
Jon Snow is a name familiar to the many fans of George R. R. Martin’s Game of Thrones series of books, and the HBO television series based upon them. Perhaps a little less well-known currently is the fictional character’s 19th century namesake, an English physician whose research into a cholera outbreak in London indicated that read more…
After my Swedish misadventure, it was a few weeks before I felt like doing any baking. When I did decide to get back into it, I was dismayed to find the cupboard where I keep all my baking ingredients had been squatted by an army of minute insects. They were everywhere: in the bags of read more…
It’s been nearly a year since I last posted on this blog, for various reasons. At the beginning of the year I started working on a new look, planning to return to regular blogging once it was up and running. With everything nearly complete, I took a week out in March to visit a friend read more…
Although the kneading of dough is one of the most familiar and distinctive images people associate with making bread, it doesn’t have to be part of the process at all. So-called ‘no-knead’ recipes dispense entirely with this input of labour, whether human or mechanical. The Scottish nutritionist, author and campaigner Doris Grant invented her no-knead read more…
We all know and love flour as the essential ingredient in bread. But flour can also perform other functions, acting, as it were, as an assistant or auxiliary in the process of making bread.
A colleague at work was telling me the other day about a lentil loaf she had made for a dinner party. We normally talk about really exciting stuff like skydiving and underwater cave exploration, but the other day it was lentil loaf.
Still on the subject of brownies, some recent experiments have finally borne fruit. For no particular reason that I know of, it occurred to me that salted chocolate brownies might be a good idea. By now we’re all familiar with salted caramel, which seems to be enjoying a spike in popularity though it isn’t by read more…
