Baguette Couronne

One solution to fitting long baguettes into a domestic oven is to go circular! Use your favourite baguette recipe, form into a Couronne and you get the same bread, plenty of chewy crust and it fits perfectly onto your baking stone.

Hot Cross Buns

Recipe: 'The Fabulous Baker Brothers', Tom & Henry Herbert.

A bargain find

As the saying goes, 'a bad craftsman always blames his tools'. When you buy, or better still, make your own real bread you need a proper bread knife to do it justice.  A sturdy steel blade with a serrated edge and long enough to allow a comfortable sawing motion is what you need. As with anything you could pay as much as you liked for a quality bread knife but it pays to look around. 

I was lucky enough to notice this vintage Sheffield steel bread knife at a second-hand sale, in its original box and hardly used for £4.50!

It's smart, stylish, as good as new in condition and cuts like a laser beam!

Caraway seeds: sweet or savoury?

These are Rye, Caraway and Raisin loaves (recipe - 'Dough', Richard Bertinet). They contain only a small amount of caraway seeds which infuse the bread with their flavour but is this a citrus twang to go with preserves for breakfast or an aniseed savoury note to complement goat's cheese or cheese on toast for lunch?  

Time for some experiments I think, marmalade first.

Loaf shaping success and failure!

I've been trying out some shaping techniques to make attractive looking loaves. The first 'Fendu' from the French verb 'fendre - to split or to crack'.  This requires the shaped dough to be divided with a rolling pin before being placed into a banneton for the final proof. When this dough meets the heat and expands the weakness where the two halves joined separates evenly.

The second is 'tabatiere' which means 'snuffbox' in view of the flap or 'lid' which is created by flattening a portion of the shaped loaf and folding this back over the loaf.

 When baking the expanding loaf parts at the edges of the flap...or that's the idea. I've tried this method a couple of times without success. I intend to try again but so far it seems like my loaves are simply grinning at me, presumably in scorn at my failed attempts!

Holiday bakes

Some time off work over the Christmas and New Year period gave me the opportunity (and ideal excuse) to try some bakes I'd either not tried before or some that I don't usually have time for. Here are some pics...

Stollen (recipe: 'Crust', Richard Bertinet)

Packed with some boozy fruit and a marzipan/almond paste.

English Muffins

Perfect for smoked salmon & scrambled eggs.

Cheesy Breadsticks

Boxing Day Pie (Recipe: http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/hand-raised_boxing_day_84945. )

(made with 'hot water crust' pastry and layers of the leftover turkey, stuffing and cranberries)

Fougasse (a 'tear n share' table centre piece)

Sourdough Pain Rustique: http://www.weekendbakery.com/posts/sourdough-pain-naturel/ 

and Date and Walnut Sourdough, perfect for breakfast, lunch or with a cup of tea.

Here's looking forward to whatever baking challenges 2015 has in store.

Couronne Bordelaise

Recipe: Pain de Campagne from 'Dough', Richard Bertinet.