Lardy cake is one of the jewels in the crown of British baking, yet you would have your work cut out to find a bakery that could sell you one these days. There are variations of the lardy across the country, but it is most strongly associated with the westcountry and it was my father, 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…
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 made a batch of muffins for breakfast at the weekend. I think the secret to making successful muffins is to get them the right thickness. It’s hard to make them too thin, but very easy to make them too thick. If that happens, it can be difficult to cook them right through without burning read more…
Ahh, ciabatta – the parvenu cousin of the French baguette. My first encounter with ciabatta, back when I was still a novice baker, was something of a revelation. Not just the wild, open texture, but also the distinctive mouthfeel of a crumb made with a highly hydrated dough was quite new to me. It really read more…
The weather has suddenly improved, flowers are coming into bloom, and the swifts have made their first appearance of the season. So obviously I turned the oven up to 11 and made a slab of focaccia.Of course, you can enjoy focaccia any time of the year, but I associate it with good weather and eating read more…
A good milk loaf is perfect breakfast fare, and over the years I’ve experimented with various recipes. One that I hadn’t got round to trying until this weekend was Dan Lepard’s version, from his book The Handmade Loaf. His recipe uses milk, melted butter and golden syrup to enrich the dough. As it happened, my read more…
