Saturday 3 March 2012

Currently Craving: Bread!

As promised every month I am writing a post on something I am currently craving.
Last month it was the delicious botanically brewed drinks from Fentinmans, this week it’s something a little more simple...BREAD!

There is NOTHING like the smell of freshly baked bread wafting from your kitchen. I’m doubly fortunate as not only do I bake bread quite often, my parent’s home down south is near a bread factory [enter a brand like Warburtons/Kingsmill here, I’m not sure which one!] and although one of their loaves can’t beat a homemade loaf any day, I love it in the summer when the breeze blows the right way and you get a waft of freshly baked bread as you’re lazing in the back garden!
I first learnt to cook bread in a “Food Tech” class, I was in year 8 and we were given a basic white loaf recipe and we had to tweak it in some way to come up with our own. This could be using wholemeal flour instead, adding various ingredients such as cheese, bacon, onion etc, or playing around with the shape of our loaf!

I made an Italian herb bread which I made out of 6 roll sized balls of dough which fused together in a round tin when they cooked! Very pretty looking!
It wasn’t bad for a first go! Though I took my food tech lessons for granted back then. It was gobbled up by that evening and I thought nothing more until a few years ago.




Initially I got back into the bread making habit using those packets of flour already containing yeast etc – just add water, knead, bake and hey presto you have a fancy flavoured bread, but now I like to truly make it from scratch!
I’ve posted before about a sundried tomato bread and this is definitely one of my favourites, but this month I’ve been craving just a good artisan white crusty loaf!

Simple, but...perfect! You can tear off a hunk and have good old fashioned bread and butter, or treat yourself to thick slices of toast with apricot jam. You really can’t beat having made your own white loaf!
People often shy away from making their own as its too time consuming, but think about it...10-15mins of kneading is all it really takes once you’ve mixed the dough. The rest of the “cooking time” it’s either sat on the floor in your airing cupboard/in front of a radiator or actually in the oven cooking! So you have no excuse not to make your own loaf on a weekend! (You could probably even nip to the shops during its first prove!)

So if like me you’re a lover of REAL bread, follow this fool proof recipe and treat yourself this weekend.



2 comments:

  1. People always give me filthy looks when I say this, but I don't really like bread.. I'm just not a carbs person! Saying that I do love making bread, and the smell of it baking..
    xo

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  2. Haha dw I know what you mean! I probably eat bread once a month! You will never catch me eating a sandwich for lunch that's for sure! But like you say making bread is fun and smells delicious! I only eat bread which is worth eating in it's own right!

    You'd never just tuck into a slice of the prepackaged stuff you find in a supermarket, but warm rustic bread, I'd eat a hunk of that any day :)

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