Bake wholesome #realbread at home with tried and tested recipes from The Bread She Bakes
One of my recent visits to Ireland brought me to The Cliff House Hotel in Ardmore and, oh my, they do good brown bread there. Luckily, I found the recipe in The Cliff House Hotel Cookbook: Granny McGrath’s Brown Irish Soda Bread. Some of the ingredients were rather hard to find in the UK (they are more … Read more
Adding seeds to homemade breads is a great way of enhancing the taste, texture and nutritional value of an otherwise plainer loaf. Here is a recipe for a multi-seed bread using different seeds (sunflower and pumpkin seeds as well as seeded flour) and a handful of chopped walnuts. Dry-roasting the seeds and nuts first makes … Read more
A new favourite! This rye bread with sunflower seeds is amazing – rye sourdough, malt and toasted sunflower seeds give this bread its delicious flavour. While sunflower seeds usually only have a very mild taste, toasting them evokes a wonderfully nutty flavour. Additionally, they are a great source of Vitamin E, copper, vitamin B1, magnesium … Read more
Focaccia is a flattish rustic Italian bread with an open, irregular crumb structure. I love focaccia when it’s moist and chewy without being too oily, when it’s kept simple, with an emphasis on fresh herbs and olive oil flavours. Focaccia dough is fairly wet and sticky, but the addition of olive oil means it’s still pliable, … Read more
Packed with great tasting flax seeds, this flaxseed bread recipe is one of my current favourites. I love baking with rye and use both wholemeal rye flour as well as whole wheat and white wheat flour in the recipe. The result – a robust loaf of wholesome brown bread filled with crunchy seeds. Delicious with butter … Read more
Bagels are exciting; not only because of their unique taste but also because the baking process involves boiling the bagels before baking them. It’s this process that creates the wonderfully chewy interior crumb while leaving the outside browned, crisp and shiny. There are two different shaping methods – ‘Rope and loop’: Makes a rounder bagel … Read more
I started using Kamut khorasan flour in bread baking two months ago and have not stopped using it since. It tastes excellent in sourdough breads and I’ve baked some of the best loaves of bread I’ve ever tasted with this beautiful flour. Here is my Kamut bread recipe, also incorporating flax seeds. I recommend it! “Kamut” is a … Read more
This whole milk bread recipe makes one of the most comforting loaves of bread I’ve ever tasted. It’s gorgeously soft and pillowy and deliciously wholesome. The proofing and baking process is a real spectacle as the dough boldly spills over the top of the tin and then rises to exuberant heights in the oven. “The … Read more
It’s picnic time! Well, almost… It’s mid-April and in Edinburgh we have maximum temperatures of 8°C and wind gusts of up to 47 mph. So, not quite picnic weather yet, but I’m sure when the Scottish summer comes, it’s going to be amazing! The unpredictable Scottish weather is exactly why a picnic loaf needs to be … Read more
Watching the first episode of Ottolenghi’s Mediterranean Feast set in Morocco, I was (of course) inspired by the industriousness in the Moroccan bread bakery. It brought back memories of my first authentic Moroccan meal, sitting on a balcony overlooking the bustling Jemaa el-Fnaa in Marrakesh. If you love Middle Eastern & Mediterranean food as much as I do, … Read more