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!