Challah

Here's an interesting fact about me: half my ancestors are Jewish. My maternal grandparents, and a big chunk of my family on that side.

Cheese and Onion Muffins

These muffins had a rather sinister beginning.

They actually started life as a cruel and malicious ploy to trick my friend.

But let me explain, it's not quite as bad as all that.

The Essence of Bread - Part 2

Link to Part 1

The trouble with ratios is that they don't explain absolutely everything. Even if you've never made bread before, you probably know that if you just bunged some flour, water and yeast together and didn't do anything else, you wouldn't end up with bread.

So I've also been looking into basic technique. The book, Ratio, gives an acceptable overview but I think even that assumed a bit of prior knowledge, and I was starting from a complete blank. I spent a while looking up simple techniques and things, and decided I had a decent enough idea to give it a try.

The Essence of Bread - Part 1

Do you know what bread is?

Think carefully, it's a difficult question.