Everyday Pain!

While we are on a celebration of the simple, surely the attempt at an everyday bread, Pain de Mie, was in order.

What Bertinet had termed the closest you get to sliced white bread in France turned out to be a breakfast pleasure and a smooth sailing party to make.

Best served slightly warmed and spooned over with gooey, full-fat hazelnut chocolate spread ... this makes weekday mornings worth getting up for.

Back to baguettes

After an ambitious stab at ferment, sourdough and the like, a little reflection was in order ... especially when it looked like there was a basic somewhere that was yearning to be perfected.

So it was a head-back to basic, white baguettes.

This time round, the mini loaves were more precisely formed, the baguette rolls (if you can call them that, since Bertinet has actually reported that the technical definition of a baguette in France calls for exactly seven top slits and probably proportion correct to the last millimetre) were generous in sizing but prettily perfect for a crusty morning bread with robust black coffee.

The first of the second book

D Goddess' bread-making endeavours had made considerable progress after many sessions of kneading, folding and general aiding in the collapse of a flimsy Ikea table; and so was attempted the eventual venture into Bertinet's second book, CRUST, which teaches the incorporation of a slow process of six-hour to overnight ferment.

The first attempt is this approximately nine-hour-in-the-making Somerset Cider Bread, which was fat at first (left above), and only bigger afterwards.

A little too-early slashing meant the partial collapse of the bread, so two loaves were nicely risen and chewy, the other two were perfect for swan-hurling at the Botanic Gardens (which we never did).