After reading an inspiring article, complete with recipes and glossy pics, about a film making couple who started to bake bread at home and then managed to make a business out of their 'Handmade Bread Bakery Coop'. I decided to give it a go. Our lovely Kiwi guest and Devon Best B and B owner who had stayed the week before makes his own bread for toast and had also encouraged me do the same. I have made bread in the past but this new recipe for a loaf that looked and tasted just 'like a brought one' pushed me into it purely on an aesthetic basis. I was tired of the bread maker loaves which were always so uniform, so inorganic looking. So I set too...made the dough with the simple ingredients flour, yeast, salt and water and then left it on the heated concrete kitchen floor beside the wetback stove and went to bed. This 'Sleeper' loaf needs 10 - 16 hrs to rise so does it while you snooze. After a fairly rough nights sleep with a 6 year old with a high temperature sharing our bed I rose to find the dough had risen so much that it had maxed the bowl and lifted the 'gladwrap' off the top. I then turned it onto a floury board cut it in two and formed 2 nicely shaped loaves, sprinkled them with flour, slashed the top and left them in the warm for another couple of hours to rise again...baked in time for lunch with a Cream of Celeriac soup...fantastic. It could not have been easier.
In London I would have happily purchased the same gorgeous looking loaf from a specialist baker on Chiswick High Road and thought it infeasible that I would have the skills, time or energy to do the same. Now I am a convert and intend honing the bread making skills on my family then make bread for B and B guests to eat toasted for breakfast or with soups and pates for the evening meal. The 'malade' six year old rated it as the 'best ever' bread she has tasted as she enjoyed her warm slices with the ever present Vegemite. She soon had us selling it in our own Bread Van around the villages of Champagne...this would be a bit of a 'coals to Newcastle' situation for the French who do not do either 'toast' or homemade bread but her entrepreneurial spirit made for an interesting discussion around the lunch table!
So here is my first loaf...
Thanks to those at The Handmade Bakery...check them out...
http://www.thehandmadebakery.coop/about
3 comments:
This is so exciting to see you have a blog Glenis.. Am I your first follower? How exciting that is. This is looking very good indeed. Yummy!
Your blog is FANTASTIC G! I love it and look forward to following your adventures. Bread looks GREAT - why does bread have a 'scary' element to it I wonder? You certainly make it sound and look easy - well done you! X
It is easy and so nice to work the warm dough and watch it rise..good for the soul!
Post a Comment