. No bread is an island: Baking weekend at Trefriw, Nth Wales

No bread is an island

...entire of itself. (With apologies to John Donne!)

I live and breathe breadmaking. I’m an evangelist who would like everyone to make his or her own bread. I want to demystify breadmaking and show it as the easy everyday craft that it is. To this end I endeavour to make my recipes as simple and as foolproof as I possibly can.

I call my blog 'No bread is an island' because every bread is connected to another bread. So a spicy fruit bun with a cross on top is a hot cross bun. This fruit dough will also make a fruit loaf - or Chelsea buns or a Swedish tea ring...

I'm also a vegan, so I have lots of vegan recipes on here - and I'm adding more all the time.

Beginners, start here.

Thursday 26 July 2012

Baking weekend at Trefriw, Nth Wales

After a traumatic, stop-start, journey in the rain, up the M5 and M6 and over the top of Wales, I arrived at the rugby club around 8.30 to be welcomed by some old and new friends - and a terrific vegetable stew, with lots of crusty bread!

When I finally got around to do some breadmaking I thought I'd just prepare a couple of overnight doughs - a sweet one and a savoury one in preparation for the morn. There was a huge selection of flours and other ingredients to choose from - plus several assorted buckets full of sourdough starters.

1 sweet dough – 1 cup starter, 3 cups white flour, 1 cup water, 2 dsps sugar, olive oil

1 savoury dough – 1 cup starter, 3 cups white flour, 1 cup water, 1 tsp salt, olive oil

Both of these made a very wet and sticky dough - I simply gave them both a quick knead and left them, covered, on the worktop.

The following morning I slapped and folded both doughs - starting with the sweet one, which I eventually shaped into a cherry and chocolate fougasse:

Very disappointing! My first go at this was a far more attractive loaf. Still, it tasted wonderful!

My first chocolate and beetroot sourdough loaf - which was a revelation! The keeping qualities of this loaf are such that ten days after baking I used the last crust as toast.

Upper shelf of one of the racks...

...and the lower shelf.

Another rack.

Vegan bread wraps in preparation for Sunday lunch. They were first spread with mushroom pate, then with vegan pesto, then the tomatoes were placed on top.