MESSY BAKER

Its that time of the year when we start making up plans for the future and write down New Year resolutions. I am pretty bad with sticking to any resolutions, and in fact I’ve given up even making any for a number of years. This year I’ve decided to share my New Year resolution with all you lovely people, so if I start straying from the path you can yank me back on the straight and narrow. So, the plan is to bake a new bread every month – something traditional – from as many countries as possible, something familiar and a bit unusual at the same time, something I haven’t baked before.< Here is the plan, but I reserve the right to change it as I please :) Please, join me in my baking – I would love to see your photos January - English Cottage Bread . This is a good old traditional recipe, and I really like the fun shape of it. A nice and easy recipe to start the year. February - Pain de Campagne . Again, a very traditional French bread – I’ve read a recipe for that pain de ch...

I took a few months break from sourdough as its been quite busy with new job and lots of house work. But this weekend I decided that I’ve had enough of shop-bough break and went to wake up my starter to make some decent bread. The bread I ended up making is a simple Miller Loaf, but as I was making it I realized that I’ve learned a few bread tricks in the last few years and wanted to share them with you lovely folks. Grab a cup of tea and make yourself comfortable, knowing me, it will go on for a while : -            Keep just one or two starters When I first started making sourdough I had about four or five different starters in the fridge, every possible flour combinations. They all had their own names and their own tempers – at the end it was a full time job just to keep them all fed and watered, so inevitably I ended up killing most of them :) Right now I only keep one starter in the fridge – my mother starter – it’s a 100% hy...