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.

Tuesday, 29 April 2014

BREADMAKING AT WELLINGTON CHILDREN'S CENTRE, Nov 2013

Wednesday 20th November 2013
Another lovely session with 4 families attending. This time we made pain au chocolat, jam and mincemeat doughnuts and jam and mincemeat tarts.


The table before we start - mincemeat, jam and chocolate at the ready. The only equipment needed is a bowl, a beaker and a teaspoon for each family. Beakers in bowls so that any flour spillage is collected in the bowl.


15 minutes later - dough made and rolled out - circles cut out, turned into doughnuts and tarts

The beakers double up as cutters
The two small rolls in the middle are pain au chocolat. The chocolate pieces are halved chocolate squares from Lidl's Fair Trade range. Lovely dark chocolate costing £1.00/100g - bargain!



Noah's bread

Alisha's

Michelle's bread with one pain au chocolat missing already - but it was her birthday!


Kelly's bread. She came to the session a bit late and only had time to make the pain au chocolat. Shame! :)

Michelle and her birthday loaf - which contained, from  left to right, mincemeat, chocolate and jam

Here's a close-up of Michelle's bread - I'll turn it right side up when I get a moment.
[More to come]


Wednesday 13th November 2013
Much better turnout this time - making pizzas and sizzlers. 5 families turned up - with 2 dads and 3 mothers.




Once again, busy tables with lots of activity - this time I remembered to take a few pics, both of the proving dough and of the finished article.




The sizzlers were filled with either mushroom and cheese or tomato and cheese. depending on preference - and they're proving on top of the ovens to take advantage of the heat. 

They don't need to prove for long, since there is about 10g of fresh yeast to 150g of flour they rise pretty fast. But, since we only have an hour and a half for the whole session, there's no time to waste.




Some of the finished bread - could have taken Noah's pizza out a couple of minutes earlier, though! :(

Next week we'll be making pain au chocolat and jam doughnuts - probably I'll bring some mincemeat as well to make 


Wednesday 6th November 2013

The first of three visits this month to this Children's Centre I've visited several times before.

"It's a new group, so we're not sure how many will come" said Kelly, the organiser. And, in the event, two families came, one mum with two children and a dad with one - all of the children under 2 years old.

For the first session, we made bread rolls, which, with only a couple of families participating, didn't take long. So Kelly went downstairs to the playgroup and recruited half a dozen 2 to 3-year-olds!




Not many pics - just lots of activity! Once the half a dozen playgroup children joined us it became a very busy session indeed!

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