This post is not Gluten free

I make bread. I never buy bread. It's a habit of mine. It's quite easy but also, can be as technical as you want to make it. You can throw (literally) the ingredients into a mixing bowl, for an easy loaf for example: 500g flour, 9g salt, 290g water, 7g dried yeast. And you can mix it up thoroughly into a dough with the handle of a wooden spoon and just leave it for an hour or so. Kneading isn't strictly necessary. Time can have the same effect. And then you can tip it out, fold it and shape it and leave it half an hour somewhere warm and then bake it. The temperature will depend on your oven. I use 230°C for six minutes then turn the loaf round and take the temperature down to 190°C for about another half an hour. You can make bread this simply, with only a few minutes actual intervention. It really is that simple, and generally it will be better than what you can buy.

Why do I make bread? Well, it started when my daughter had her first anaphylactic attack in response to nut allergy about 20 years ago. Prick-testing showed her to be allergic to all nuts, soya (and all pulses), egg, gelatin, tree pollen and cats. This severely cramps your style when you are three and makes birthday parties a nerve-wracking affair for all concerned.

But we discovered that pretty much all "manufactured" bread contained soya flour, or even stranger, lupin flour. And the bread in the in-store bakeries ran the risk of contamination with nuts, which could have been fatal. And so, we bought a breadmaker and this was a wonderful thing! Every morning, for a two minute preparation and a setting of the timer, we could come down to fresh bread at breakfast. We made white bread, wholemeal bread, bread with olives or sun-dried tomatoes. what a feast every loaf was.

But soon, I tired of the "breadmakery taste" which seemed to characterise every loaf. Oh, it was certainly better than most bread you could buy, but because of the construction of the pan in the machine, you always got a slightly caramel flavour, which was not unpleasant, just samey.

Then, after my brain haemorrhage when I was rather rudimentary for a while, tasks requiring procedural actions and no decision making were all I could manage. So, I made a lot of bread. And I started making it by hand. And this was something altogether different. I did, as it might be described, catch the bug.

I think this qualifies as a Cornucopia.

A local and nationally renowned mill ("By  Appointment to HM The Queen" no less) runs bread making courses lasting a day and explaining about aspects of the process, and a splendid lunch was thrown in to boot. We came away not only with a huge box containing flours and our produce: cottage loaves, plaits, Chelsea buns, pittas and other wonderful types of bread I forget now.

During the course, a kind of conversion took place in me. The revered and eminently knowledgeable chap running the course, with some authority, explained to us how bread is made in industry.  He told us of the Chorley Wood process and how a loaf can be made from flour and other ingredients in as little as half an hour, by high speed mixing, extra fast yeasts optimised for carbon dioxide production, and how this caused fast rising but led to collapse of the structure necessitating the need for extra gluten to be added. He explained how the bread went into steam ovens to be cooked at 90°C meaning that in some cases, along with all the unfermented starches and unmodified glutenins and gliadins (the proteins commonly referred to as "gluten"), the yeast might still be active right in the middle of the loaf. And all this using the cheapest ingredients possible to still be able to call it bread.
The purpose of the bread industry is not to make bread, but to make profit.

And so, enthused, I now had good reason to indulge my passion. When we left the course, he also gave us some of his sourdough culture. This is a mixture of wild yeasts such as lives in the air and on the husks of the grain and bacteria such as lactobacilli which like to hang out with yeasts. In short, it is a community of micro-organisms which all resides in a kind of pasty mixture. You feed it with flour and it adapts to the type of flour and the environment in your kitchen. Each place I have lived has caused my sourdough culture to produce different flavours in the bread. I assume this is because the population changes to include the residents of the new kitchen and worktops.

Latest bakings: Seeded Wholegrain sourdough

The beauty of sourdough is that it is a gentle process which is in some ways the antithesis of the Chorley Wood process: It takes time. Of course, you can make bread using yeast. I often buy a block from the bakery at the supermarket. It is good and strong and will lift dough which is "enriched" (mixed with oil or butter) which sourdough sometimes struggles with. But for my daily bread, I use sourdough (which is not sour by the way. A healthy culture, well fed will not go "lactic". That only happens if it is not fed adequately.

A sourdough fermentation can last days. Personally, once it is kneaded for five minutes or so, I tend to favour an overnight dough, usually no longer than twenty four hours in a fridge or cool kitchen. This long process, usually done somewhere cool, allows the yeasts and bacteria to "do some of the digesting for you". It also produces the deliciousness lacking in too much commercial bread. fermentation by products are what give the deliciousness. And slower and cooler give more. Of course, it grows and you have to "knock it back" (knock the gas out) at periodic intervals lest it take over your kitchen.

As I said earlier, you can make bread simply. Or you can get into the more complicated factors like hydration levels and different protein levels in flours. Simply put: bread flour needs at least 12% protein. British flour struggles to reach this, but that makes it good for biscuits. french bread uses "stronger " flour i.e. flour with more gluten.

54% hydration, yeast dough. Traditional cottage loaf and rolls

Hydration is an interesting variable. It just means the proportion of water to flour. I use between 54% (for a cottage loaf, a sandwich loaf or anything requiring a shape to be retained during baking) and 80% (for a ciabatta or focaccia.) The less water, the "tighter" the "crumb". This just means the bubble are smaller and the bread is more dense. Perfect for a good cheddar and some pickle.

A lighter crumb is a lower density, light bread with big bubbles. You don't knead this, but fold it at intervals, usually 45 minutes or an hour, four or so times. It makes bread that is perfect for soaking up a good olive oil.

ciabatta loaves. 75% hydration. Messy but worth it!

I have been making bread for 20 years in one way or another. It doesn't take much time once the process is clear in your head. I do ten minutes mixing and kneading, put the dough aside, leave it a period of time, knock it back for a few minutes, shape it, leave it a couple more hours and bake it for between half an hour and an hour. Actual intervention time is about twenty minutes and  I bake usually five or six loaves. I like to fill the oven for the sake of efficiency. I can freeze loaves when cool and apparently they are lower GI once thawed and so better with respect to insulin response. My usual batch of bread costs me, in UK money, £1.50 or thereabouts for ingredients and obviously, a few units of electricity for baking. For contrast, the local farmers' market sells large sourdough loaves for £3.50 to £6 a loaf. Food once a staple of the peasant diet is artisan and out of the reach of normal people. Or you can make your own.

I am an evangelist for good bread. I believe the stuff made in factories is bad for us. I am not a conspiracy theorist. I just understand the economics, the processes and the chemistry. People who tell me "I bloat when I have bread" say in puzzled tones that they can eat mine with no discomfort. I think my explanation above may hint at reasons why this might be. And I now bloat if I eat shop-bought bread (and I am by no means a "sensitive type" I can generally eat anything pretty much that falls within the category of "food").

Now I no longer have a salary, I cant afford to turn up with an expensive bottle of wine to a dinner party. But I can turn up with bread that will stop the conversation in the room. And the bread is no longer just a vehicle for more exotic foods. It is a star in  its own right.

I also run occasional courses of my own, and the look of delight when people open the oven door to behold their first loaf of bread, all crusty and perfect is a joy I never get tired of. The subsequent proud photos I receive always give me a deep sense of satisfaction that someone else is now finding their way in this wonderful craft and may bring me to new ways of baking by their discoveries.

If you don't already, I urge you to give it a try. There are some excellent videos on youtube I could point you to. I am still learning from them myself. It is better for you, even a loaf such as I described at the beginning of this piece. The making of it grounds you and leaves you feeling peaceful but accomplished. Of course, you get the occasional failure, but generally, it is a pastime that only brings deep gratification.

Successful baking from Mud and Enthusiasm

So, last Saturday, I could contain myself no longer and I finally decided to fire up my oven. I called my friend Steve, with whom I had constructed it the week before and like two ridiculously excited schoolboys, at 6 o'clock, we lit it. I had started the dough, with strong durum flour, at breakfast time, put it in the fridge for a few hours, given it a good slapping-about mid afternoon and then left it to prove for a few more hours.

Well, a few hours later, the oven was getting hot to the touch and there was considerable amount of heat coming out of the front of it. So we made a pizza and swept the embers to either side of the base of the fire. Placing the pizza dough on the paddle, or "peel" as I believe it is called, the first flatbread was plonked unceremoniously inside.

Well, it wasn't an immediate success. It fell into the ashes and the edges were a bit gritty. But the principle had been proven. We had baked our first bread in a home-made clay pizza oven made from clay from my flower beds!
So we made up a proper pizza and rearranged the ashes a bit more. This time, I blocked up the door with a bit of plywood. The results were better, although the shape rather reminiscent of the Isle of Wight. But it cooked, and we ate it and it was lovely!

The next attempt went better. the oven was warming up now and the outside too hot to touch. The technique to get the dough off the peel left something to be desired and an accidental folded-up calzoni was produced, which now tasted something like we had hoped.

Many hands appeared, to grab a slice, and enthusiasm was building along with the heat. we were getting the hang of it now.
Well, by now it was getting late in the evening and the oven was fair singing with heat. We had one ball of dough left, sufficient for one large final pizza. On to this one went bacon, mushrooms, chorizo and olives. Five hours after lighting, the oven was perfect. And we had run out of dough. And beer. Luckily by then, i was on to the blackberry wine, which now has a lovely fizz, so I had it with creme de Mur, and this was gorgeous. But that's another story.

This pizza was the best I had ever tasted. Our deep satisfaction from our endeavours - the idea, the construction, the toil, the lighting of the fire, the cooking - all converged upon this one glorious moment of shared consumption.

Much was learned that night about how (not) to use a clay pizza oven. It seems the way to do it is to light a fire a good four hours earlier than you need to use it and to get the base and structure really hot before attempting to cook anything in it.
Then, when there is a layer of glowing embers a good 5cm deep over the whole base for a significant time, remove enough to make space for the food, and sweep the remainder to the sides. These then need to be kept on fire and flaming with small, thin, long pieces of kindling. After that, you have a wonderful hot space at perhaps upward of 400C in which to cook (very quickly). In here, pizza, bacon, lamb kebabs or even small loaves of bread can be cooked. More experiments will continue. I shall keep you abreast of developments, but for now, I am retiring to the patio with a glass of lemon wine to sit and look at my oven and to pretend it has a fire in it.

Today: The Devil makes work for Idle Fingers

Today, i was going to build a clay oven in the garden. there is a hole four feet deep where I extracted the building material and I suppose I ought to fill it in before someone falls into it.

You could lose a small child in there. And I know some candidates. I really want to build a clay oven to bake my bread, which I have been very busy doing lately.

Baking bread is sequential and I find it restful. A clay oven in my tiny garden would take up a significant proportion of space but I am sure it would be worth it. I saw Hugh Fearnley-W making one on telly and it fired my imagination.
But, today, it looks like it might rain and I need to buy some sand to mix with the clay and seeing as I still am not allowed to drive, I decided it will have to wait. I have some enthusiastic friends who are fellow bakers and who are anxious to help so perhaps I will recruit them for the stomping and mixing part later in the weekend. I promise there will be pictures.

So, since I can't get on with my construction projects and the clouds look ominous, I decided to get out my banjo for the first time in a year or so. Sometimes, you just have to make a noise. This is me. Not my best playing but I am very rusty after a hiatus of about ten years. I used to busk in Cardiff dressed as a hillbilly. It was good training for presentations. Once you have dealt with tramps trying to steal your money-hat and well-dressed fellows inviting you, with no hint of a smile, back to their flats to "play with my banjo!" you can deal with pretty much anything.

Alas, the kids came along, the banjo went in the loft and I became a respectable member of society, father-of-two and wage-slave. I forgot my wild youth, put aside frivolous passtimes and settled down to a domestic bluegrass-free existence.
But my ears still prick up when I hear the strains of "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" on the telly on some advert or other.

I shall end with a popular joke from my bluegrass days:
Q: What is the difference between a banjo and a trampoline.
A: You take your shoes off to jump on a trampoline.