Regular readers will know that we’re a little bit obsessed with real bread – making it, baking it and eating it. I made a few attempts at getting a starter going – sadly, none managed to survive for long. Our friends over at Snygg sent us a portion of their rye starter in the post and, (touch wood) nearly two months on, it’s still going great guns! After using & feeding it a few times I divided it and developed one half into a white starter so we have a bit of variety. We’ve been enjoying a regular supply of home-made bread – baguettes, rye loaves, ciabatta, seeded boules…
We have an ever-growing collection of artisan bread-baking books to give us inspiration & ideas. Some of the recipes are used again & again – these are some favourites:
- Bread – Christine Ingram & Jennie Shapter
- Nancy Silverton’s Breads from the La Brea Bakery
- Crust and Crumb: Master Formulas for Serious Bread Bakers – Peter Reinhart
- How to Make Bread – Emmanuel Hadjiandreou
- The Best of Baking – Annette Wolter & Teubner Christian
- Country Bread – Linda Collister & Anthony Blake
A couple of these books are by American bakers so measurements are in cups. To get over this you can either use an online conversion tool, get a lovely conversion poster for your kitchen wall or, do what I did, invest in some measuring cups that measure… cups!
Glad the starter's going well! Other books I like include Dan Lepard's "The Handmade Loaf" and Daniel Leader's "Bread Alone". Oh, and of course Elizabeth David's "English Bread and Yeast Cookery".
Well, looks like I'm just going to have to add a few more to the collection! 😉
I recently made bread with my young daughter for the first time in many years and it was fabulous! So pleased the recipe we used actually worked for her 😉
Glad it all went well, a disaster early on could put a young person of cooking & baking for years!
My daughter made her first ever loaf yesterday and it was delicious, better than any of my attempts. You can't beat that smell.
Say goodbye to shop-bought bread! 🙂