When I started this baking hobby, I didn’t want to be a One
Trick Pony, I wanted to experiment with all the different aspects of baking,
not just making cupcakes in varying flavours. I’ve tackled the bog standard
cupcakes, a variety of biscuits and pastry but one area still unchartered was
bread; I always thought of bread making as being both so simple and yet so complicated
at the same time. A simple white loaf has just four ingredients; flour, yeast,
salt and water, yet it’s the techniques and processes that make it a fine art.
It’s by no means a quick process; it needs time to rise, prove and then bake,
but I think the satisfaction when it works is the best of all the things I’ve
made so far. Being able to tell people at work that my lunchtime sandwich was
made with my homemade bread, and see the impressed look on their faces was great
- although I know they all prefer it when I make the biscuits and cakes as they
get to enjoy them!
My finished bread masterpiece was far far from perfect, I
didn’t really know how to knead the bread, the most important step, as I had
only made it once before in high school food technology, but I turned to my
little friend YouTube and he helped me out – the joys of the internet. It was
all very experimental, and I honestly expected to make a disgusting, heavy,
brick – something like the loaf that kills a duck in About A Boy - but it was
pleasantly surprising.
So, I’ve tried cakes, biscuits ,pastry and now bread – all
with varying degrees of success, there seems to only be one thing left –
patisserie – but I think that a long way of yet! Better learn to walk properly
first…
