Auxiliary flour
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.
Tools of the trade
Voulez-vous façonner ma pâte?
Working with soft, sticky bread doughs – those containing 70% or more water by weight of flour – can be tricky. When it comes to shaping the loaf, you need to flour your hands and worksurface to help prevent the dough sticking. The problem is, even if you take care to distribute an even layer read more…
Lame excuses
The lame, or grignette as it is sometimes known, is a humble tool of French origin, which is used to make slashes in proved bread dough before it enters the oven. A lame is basically a razor blade on a stick. It’s pretty simple and, as a result, the design of lames tends towards function read more…
Mini-loaf tins
Here’s some interesting baking ephemera: a set of mini loaf tins impressed with the Hovis brand name. When I first saw them, I assumed that they were produced for promotional purposes, rather than for the mass production of pocket-sized loaves. However, a little research revealed that Hovis have indeed, as long ago as the late read more…
A case for cupcakes
I’m not a great baker of cakes, but for a long time I had been meaning to try out some of the amazing recipes on the Cupcake Bakeshop blog (no longer being actively maintained, sadly). I’ve had a couple of goes at the almond and ricotta cakes, with a reasonable degree of success. I’ve abandoned read more…
Trying out the new oven
I have moved again, this time into a flat of my own. Unfortunately, the flat is in a centuries-old timber-framed building with large, draughty sash windows and no central heating – in short, it’s freezing cold. The average kitchen temperature in the last few days has been between 8 and 10°c! Obviously, one of the read more…
The ultimate bread knife?
When it comes to food preparation, the bread knife has historically been something of an afterthought in the annals of great blade design. It’s probably fair to say that the basic edge formula – serrated and ground on one side of the blade only – doesn’t actually leave much room for improvement. In fact, while read more…
AGA than life
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…
New loaf tins
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…
Knife work
Last year I was looking for a knife that I could use for cooking on camping trips: something fairly small that would nonetheless tackle most jobs without too much difficulty. By chance I found this paring knife from the Swiss company Kuhn Rikon. It’s compact, inexpensive and comes with a useful blade guard. It’s also read more…