Domestic goddess...?

Baking!

Proud of my first ever attempt to bake bread! A small wholemeal loaf

For some reason, I have been overcome with a sudden urge to bake. I have rarely, if ever, baked in my life (apart from in 'home economics' at school)! I saw an episode of the Hairy Bakers last year where they made bread by hand and cooked it in the oven rather than in a bread maker. It looked so easy but at the time we didn’t have a kitchen conducive to baking (small, ill-equipped with few work surfaces). Since we moved and have a decent kitchen, I decided to bake. I looked up the Hairy recipe, bought the ingredients and some mixing bowls and made bread!

The recipe is as simple as they come but I swapped white flour for wholemeal - http://www.goodtoknow.co.uk/recipes/150713/Bread-dough
I wasn’t sure why I needed to let it rest twice for 30-40 minutes so I only let it rest once and the bread did taste a bit too yeasty. The second attempt I let it rest twice and I think the result was better. It’s really easy and tasty -the most time-consuming part is waiting for it to ‘prove’.

This was my second attempt - nice & tasty!

I also followed their olive bread recipe twice but it wasn’t a success, although Michael said it tasted good and we ate it! There’s no yeast in the recipe and it was too hard and flat with a wet, oily middle. http://www.goodtoknow.co.uk/recipes/148511/Mixed-olive-bread

Rather 'unleavened'-looking olive bread. Sounded delicious but didn't quite work.

The only other ‘baking’ has been to make chocolate crispy cakes for Easter! I found some miniature mini eggs in the supermarket which are ideal to put in the centre to make wee nests! I'm hoping the nephews will like them! I did look up a very indulgent recipe for a dark chocolate tart that I might make one day….