When I was a kid, if you got something good like a present or a new toy, my neighbour Jonathan used to say you were a "lucky duck". I always liked that expression :-) Well today I was a lucky duck. I won a contest on Hilary's blog, Let Her Bake Cake, which is gorgeous and which always makes me feel hungry after reading her latest post. Go and visit her and try out some of her recipes - the latest one for rice crispie squares looks fab.
Anyway my package from Hilary arrived this morning and I was pleased as punch with my little haul! She sent me the most gorgeous book about bread, The New Family Bread Book by Ursula Ferrigno, as well as two bags of Allinson flour and a tub of yeast. She also included a gorgeous tea towel which hopefully you can see in the photo, but it's too nice to use for drying dishes so I think I'll turn it into something lovely. Maybe an apron, but if you have any better ideas please let me know!
Naturally I wanted to get stuck in and make something from the book immediately if not sooner, and I was tempted to try a fougasse, but then I was distracted by a recipe for Irish brown soda bread and had to make that instead for a little taste of home. Here it is in progress (look at my kitchen tiles, aren't they hideous?!):
The recipe wanted you to shape it into a round on a baking tray, in the traditional manner, but I thought I'd be clever and stick it in a silicone loaf tin so it'd be sliceable.
Unfortunately the silicone is so flimsy that the dough forced the sides of the tin to splay out and the loaf kind of rose outwards instead of just upwards, but at least I know for the next time to do it in a proper metal tin. And I'm going to scoff some of it right now with some lentil soup I made the other day, and a lump of Bowland cheese!
Oh and I did put the yeast to work straight away too, here's a sneak peak of a milk loaf rising away happily.
Thanks again Hilary, I'm so happy with my new book and can't wait to work my way through all those pizza recipes next!
Anyway my package from Hilary arrived this morning and I was pleased as punch with my little haul! She sent me the most gorgeous book about bread, The New Family Bread Book by Ursula Ferrigno, as well as two bags of Allinson flour and a tub of yeast. She also included a gorgeous tea towel which hopefully you can see in the photo, but it's too nice to use for drying dishes so I think I'll turn it into something lovely. Maybe an apron, but if you have any better ideas please let me know!
Naturally I wanted to get stuck in and make something from the book immediately if not sooner, and I was tempted to try a fougasse, but then I was distracted by a recipe for Irish brown soda bread and had to make that instead for a little taste of home. Here it is in progress (look at my kitchen tiles, aren't they hideous?!):
The recipe wanted you to shape it into a round on a baking tray, in the traditional manner, but I thought I'd be clever and stick it in a silicone loaf tin so it'd be sliceable.
Unfortunately the silicone is so flimsy that the dough forced the sides of the tin to splay out and the loaf kind of rose outwards instead of just upwards, but at least I know for the next time to do it in a proper metal tin. And I'm going to scoff some of it right now with some lentil soup I made the other day, and a lump of Bowland cheese!
Oh and I did put the yeast to work straight away too, here's a sneak peak of a milk loaf rising away happily.
Thanks again Hilary, I'm so happy with my new book and can't wait to work my way through all those pizza recipes next!
0 comments:
Post a Comment