Cottage Loaf

I thought this looked good in Paul Hollywood's book, so thought I would give it a go. It turned out to be one of the softest and lightest breads I have made.

I have now discovered that the longer you can leave the dough to rest initially (up to 3 hours), the better the bread will be. For anyone who thinks they don't have the time to bake bread, I urge you to think again. Most of the time is not actually spent working with the dough, but leaving the dough to rest and prove. So you can go out for a few hours and come back to it. Plus if I can do it with a 9 month old baby causing havoc all around me, anyone can do it!

Chocolate chip shortbread

To me, shortbread has always been a bit of an enigma. I had assumed it was a real devil to make but it turns out that with a bit of care, its possible to turn out absolutely delicious examples. I turned to my new best friend, Paul Hollywood, for a good recipe but made the addition of chocolate chips. You just need to add these towards the end of the kneading process.

My only advice would be to work quite quickly with the dough as the butter will start to melt and can become a bit greasy. Otherwise, give them a go!

Milky Milky

It has been far too long since my last post. I have still been bust baking most weeks but tended to stick with tried and tested recipes. I thought I would try another milk dough from Paul Hollywood's new book. The milk adds a lovely sweetness to the loaf and is great for mopping up sauces. But I think it's a pretty versatile bread, would be good for most things.

If you try this one, the dough is quite tough at first so you really need to give it a bit of welly with your kneading. I also give it at least 2 hours for the initial resting stage, this gives it enough time to rise sufficiently. Enjoy.