Short & Sweet - adventures in bread

I purchased Dan Lepard's Short & Sweet for it's baking recipes, which are inspiring, interesting and offer variations for cakes and bakes that I really love. What I didn't realise is that there is a substantial chapter on baking bread. So, determined to master the art of baking bread at home, I sat myself down and read it. It's not simply a catalogue of great recipes. It offers an introduction to the art (and science) of baking bread at home. But don't fear, it's not complicated, in fact that's where Dan excels. He demystifies it. Explaining about flours, yeast, sugar and salt,  liquid, butter and oil as well as techniques like kneading - it covers absolutely everything. So armed with my new found knowledge, I set to baking some bread.

I have baked bread at home - with reasonable success in the past, both with a bread making machine and by hand. The only thing you really need to allow is time. It's not labour intensive as such, you just need to have time to knead the bread and allow it plenty of time to rise properly. I began (as you would) with the first and most simple recipe - Easy White Bread and yes it is. Easy, fairly quick and of course delicious. Once I had mastered this I felt ready to progress. I haven't gone through them methodically one by one. I have picked the most appealing and gone for it. My favourite so far has been the Multi-grain and honey loaf. This is seriously good bread. You make a "sponge" which is sort of like a starter and separately combine the "porridge" which is oats, honey, linseed and sunflower seeds with boiling water. Once ready you add the additional flours etc. It was wholesome, moist, tasted fabulous and made great sandwiches and toast.

I feel as though my bread adventure is just beginning and what a great start along this yellow brick road, led by Dan, the baking man.