Rustic Spanish Loaf

I am a big fan of Spain and all things Spanish. It stems from childhood holidays spent camping on the Costa Brava amidst pine trees that clad the rugged coastline. I then spent a life changing year studying in Granada and ever since then, I have taken every opportunity to enjoy the Spanish way of doing things. They seem to have a great work/life balance and take great pleasure in the simple things in life such as great food and drink. Although it has recently become apparent that they probably enjoyed themselves a bit too much and should have taken more care of their finances!

Which leads me onto this bread which uses a 'starter' dough in the mix which you prepare the day before. This gives the bread a wonderful flavour, much like a soughdough. Don't be put off thinking that this all seems like a lot of faff, having to prepare dough the day before. It's really very simple and doesn't take much time. Bread making is the kind of hobby you can fit around your lifestyle...even when you have a 10 week old baby in the house!

Anyway, I have just enjoyed this loaf for saturday lunch. Delicious. All it needs is a generous covering of butter. That's it. Nice and simple.

German Potato Bread

I have found my new favourite bread! Again, the Hairy Bikers baked this loaf whilst on tour in Germany and I was intrigued to find out what it tasted like, especially as the dough is made with mashed potato.

We have just enjoyed this for lunch and it was the softest loaf I have ever made with a fabulous crust. I hadn't expected it to turn out so soft having used potatoes in the mix plus not a lot of water. I made it into a ham and cheese sandwich but I would imagine you could eat this bread with pretty much anything and not be disappointed. A great dipping bread for soup. Absolutely delicious.

My new paddle

I have discovered a great new site http://bakerybits.co.uk/ and treated myself to a bread paddle to help lift the bread in and out of the oven. It works a treat. Great for pizzas too.

Chocolate Marble Cake

I usually stick with savoury baking, leaving my wife to take the glory on the cake front. But I thought I'd give her a run for her money and give this marble cake a go. What's more, a group of us new dads have formed a 'Pudding Club', so I thought I'd better get in some practice.

It was a fairly simple recipe but the most important thing about the cake is to get the chocolate swirls when you cut into it. I think I managed it :)

Scandinavian Rye Bread

I have had to put my baking tools away for a while recently, after the birth of our daughter Phoebe. But in the last couple of weeks I have hopped back on the baking bicycle, having been inspired by the Hairy Bikers and their recent trip around Europe. They went in search for the best local breads, some of which looked so good I bought the book and got baking.

I started with this Rye Bread which looked great in the book and equally delicious on the TV. What I liked about it the most was the subtle flavours imparted by the caraway seeds. I ate this with cheese and pickle but it was just as good on its own with lashings of butter!

Plait Perfect

Having watched many bakers on the telly plait their loaves, I thought I would give it a try. I soon discovered they made it look far easier than it actually was! Tasted great though. More practice needed.

Soda Bread

I tried this once before, but with whole milk instead of buttermilk and it wasn't very successful. So I wanted to give it another bash using buttermilk this time.

What I like about this type of bread is that you can be eating it barely an hour after you started mixing the dough as it doesn't contain yeast so therefore doesn't require any rising or proving time. Bonus! So this is a great place to start if you are just starting out on your baking odyssey.

One of the keys with this is to mix the dough fairly quickly and to make quite a deep slash across the dough before putting in the oven. This helps it to cook all the way through.

We ate this for breakfast, still nice and warm with butter and jam. Absolutely delicious.