The King of Breads

Ever since I began bread making, I have been working towards this moment. Whenever I read about making bread or watched the professionals on TV, they all agreed that sour dough was indeed the king of breads.

For those of you not familiar with sour dough. A very quick guide. Normal bread is made with yeast as the rising agent, sour dough is made using a 'starter' dough which uses no yeast whatsoever. The starter is a mixture of flour and water, which when left alone for a few weeks, starts to ferment and this mixture is added to your standard bread recipe to act as the rising agent. It also takes much longer to rest and prove, this loaf took about 15 hours. Some bakers have starters that are years old. It also helps to have an understanding partner who doesn't mind having breads at various stages of life in the airing cupboard for hours on end!

The result is a much more flavoursome loaf. The texture is also much more springy, almost like a ciabatta. So for my first attempt, I am pretty chuffed.

Easter Hot Cross Buns

I thought it was time to try some sweet dough. The principles are the same though, but the dough is enriched with milk, eggs and sugar. The dough is a bit wetter than a standard white dough, so you need to persevere when you are kneading it as at first it seems like it'll never firm up.

What I liked about this recipe is the addition of orange zest, an apple and a good dose of cinnamon, probably my favourite spice in the cupboard. At the time of writing, I hadn't tried one yet as we are waiting for breakfast but if they taste as good as they look, I think we are onto a winner.

Bacon and Cheddar Loaf

Now my young daughter Phoebe is approaching her first birthday, she is starting to eat a lot of the same foods as her mum and dad, and that includes bread. So, each weekend Phoebe gets her very own plain loaf baked by her Dad. I am hoping she will grow to enjoy baking as much as I do. So, once Phoebe's loaf is sorted, it's time to bake something for Mum and Dad.

The pictures of this bacon and cheddar loaf in Paul Hollywoods book were so good, that was enough for me to give it a go. The final bake didn't dissappoint. Make sure you eat this slightly warm as you then get pockets of cheesy goodness dotted throughout the loaf. Also, use a good strong vintage cheddar if you can. Delicious.

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.

Armenian Flat Breads

These have intrigued me ever since seeing them on the Great British Bake Off, so I thought I would try this variation from Emmanuel Hadjiandreou' book 'How to make Bread'.

It was a very simple dough to make. This is a flat bread designed to be very thin and crispy and therefore doesn't require any yeast. The olive oil gives the dough a smooth, shiny look. The only tricky bit was stretching the dough without it breaking, as you need it to be as thin as possible, but to be honest it didn't make any difference to the end result.(Tip: rub your hands with olive oil before stretching the dough as it makes it a little easier to work with)

We ate this with a G&T pre dinner, all very sophisticated! They were delicious, these ones had poppy and sesame seeds on top, I think the next batch I'll try with Parmesan.