Tuesday 5 November 2013

Baking bread

For the first time ever in 60+ years and inspired by watching The Great British Bakeoff, Colin bake his own bread yesterday.

With a 1.5kg bag of "Pain Maison", a sachet of dried yeast, some butter and salt (ask him about the salt some day!) he set to work. The dough was well and truly kneaded (à la Paul Hollywood) and set to prove until it had doubled in size...

Then it was knocked back and shaped before being set to prove a second time..

After dusting the risen dough with flour, the top of it was cut..
And it was ready to bake.

What a success! The crumb structure was good and the bake, perfect..

The proof of the pudding is in the eating and the atmosphere in the kitchen was tense as Colin took his first bite....
Well, what more need I say?

Well done, Colin! Your bread smelt - or smelled - (I defer to Fowler's "Modern English Usage" here) delicious!

8 comments:

Jean said...

Colin, that's even more impressive than your collection of screwdrivers !!
You have every right to look dead chuffed. I bet it tasted wonderful.

GaynorB said...

Bravo, Colin!
Are you now going to experiment with different sorts of bread and flour?
There's nothing like the smell of freshly baked bread.
For my birthday a friend bought me the Paul Hollywood bread and pies cook book.
We look forward to reading more bread making adventures

Diane said...

Nigel often makes the bread but we cheat a little as we have a bread maker!! Keep well (and dry) Diane

Susan said...

That looks fantastic! Well done.

Tim said...

Great shape and texture...
the bread as well.

I cheat for the first stage, too!!

Anonymous said...

Looks fantastic! I love home-made bread. The smell is beyond compare!

Colin and Elizabeth said...

Thank you all for your kind comments. My next challenge will be a gluten free loaf... C

GaynorB said...

Inspired, I looked out the cookbook. It is called 'how to bake' by Paul Hollywood. Lots of interesting recipes.