I’m a big fan of real ale as well as bread: after all, the two are linked by a common heritage thanks to the role of yeast in their creation (and that’s not the only reason…). Like many real ale drinkers, I’ve been seduced by the punchy, citrus flavours of beers made with hops from read more…
A bowl of spicy chicken soup and a slice of Aga-baked sourdough on a chilly October day. What else is there to say?
The last time I made brioche – and it was a while ago – I followed the recipe from Ottolenghi: The Cookbook. The results were good, but there are so many widely-differing recipes for brioche that there is plenty of scope for experiment. The other day I decided to try a brioche recipe from The read more…
The Aga that dominates the corner of my landlady’s kitchen has been switched off for the summer, but now that it feels a bit colder it has been fired up for the weekend. Naturally, I didn’t waste any time getting some bread together to take advantage of this. The cooker must be at least 50 read more…
Sadly my partner and I have decided to separate, for a while at least, and I have left the family home to become, for the first time in my life, a lodger. My new house is not very far away, in the depths of the Suffolk countryside, and comes complete with cats, chickens and a read more…
Recently I’ve been experimenting with rice bread using a recipe that I first encountered in Eliza Acton’s English Bread Book of 1857. Acton called it ‘The Rectory Receipt’ (receipt being a now-archaic word for recipe; both derive from the Latin recipere, which can mean ‘to take back’ or ‘to receive’). Acton attributes the recipe to read more…
I’ve just purchased some new loaf tins from Bakery Bits to replace the tatty old ones I’ve been using for far too long (because sometimes I like to really spoil myself). I spent a long time looking for tins that were deeper than usual – the average 2lb tin is around 7cm deep, which is read more…
Over the last ten years or so the lifestyle media has turned breadmaking – at least, a certain approach to and enthusiasm for breadmaking – into a fashionable pose. It isn’t the first time this has happened – as part of the wholefood revolution it became quite vogueish in the 1970s as a complement to read more…
One of my abiding childhood memories is of my Polish grandparents taking me to the Quantock Hills in Somerset, near where they lived in Taunton, to pick bilberries and forage for mushrooms. Bilberries – which go by a variety of rather whimsical names around the country – are native blueberries, which grow on upland heath and read more…
I was in London at the weekend and, since I was meeting a friend in South Kensington, I made a detour via the Poilâne bakery in Belgravia. Poilâne is one of the most famous bakeries in the world and its enviable reputation is founded not upon that most iconic of breads, the baguette, but on read more…
