What a tart!

MsG's birthday is woefully close to Jesus's, which means: a double December sized dent on the credit card for presents.

However, nothing furnishes swollen outgoings with welcome relief like a home-made gift. Spousal kudos is raised immeasurably by delivering a small item that (often literally) reeks of toil and sweat. So to counterbalance the presents I've got for MsG I've baked her a smashing cake.

After a rifle through several magazines and books MsG settled on a pine nut and honey tart. It was quite easy to make, the pastry being the trickiest element. It all came together well in the end though, with the final verdict from Judge G: a big thumbs up!

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Also baked this weekend: crumpets (not a great success), and another bash at the all round favourite lemon barley cob.

I've seen this happen in other people's loaves and now it's happening in mine

Hurrah! At last: I've made a loaf that looks like it wasn't baked by a chimp. In fact, Sunday's loaf could easily have sneaked into a quality baker's display and probably have stayed there all day without being rumbled.

The emergence of this fine loaf leaves behind several months of lumpy, burned and disfigured feakish breads.

Generally the success is mostly down to finally getting right all the different aspects of baking the loaf. Mixing, kneading, resting, shaping, proofing, and critically: transferring into the oven. Everything just went right.

One big difference: when I turned the oven on, I placed an empty loaf tin at the bottom of the oven. When the loaf went in, about 60 minutes later, I very carefully poured a small cupful of water into the loaf tin. This time, the loaf had a nice steamy oven to bake in.

After much deliberation, I finally decided to try a more steamy approach to baking (see earlier posts). And it appears to have worked really well. Note the fine, dramatic tears and ridges in the loaf. The crust had a nice crunch, but not so hard as to bust your crowns.

Cue smug arm folding and a dignified nod to indicate: very satisfactory.

Challah Murphy!

Ms G has put in a request for a challah this Christmas, so on Friday I did a dummy run.

As luck would have it, challah is a great bread to turn out, as it looks impressive but is relatively easy to make. Patience seemed to be the key.

It's pretty quick and easy to mix all the ingredients, and the dough rises without any trouble.

The tricky bit was rolling out the long strands of dough. Platted together to make the distinctive challah shape, they need to be of equal length and of a consistent, even girth (a proper baking term). This means you need to divide your dough evenly by weight, and gently, patiently tease the dough into long, smooth strands.

After that, the finished loaf can be slipped into the oven on the tray it's proofed on which makes life very easy.

The final challah looked and tasted pretty good. Hurrah said Ms G.

May the dough rise with you

Last weekend we went to jolly old London village. We did the essential shoe busting route march across town, looked at stuff. More walking. Looked at some other stuff. More walking. Great fun.

Anyway, London seems to be the only place in the UK where you can buy bannetons. Lovely, linen-lined baskety things. I glommed three of the buggers: big, medium, small. Now who looks like an authentic baker?

Back at the bat-cave: time to give one the new purchases a road-test. After a 60 minute repose in the new snug, cosy banneton, the dough had risen into a perfectly formed round loaf. Brilliant!

Unfortunately, when it was time to hop into the oven, the obdurate, doughy bastard wouldn't budge from the peel. After some typically clumsy tussling, a now lumpy loaf was finally shoved into the waiting cooker.

The important thing, of course is to learn from one's mistakes. Next time: gently tip the proven dough onto an appropriately flour and semolina dusted peel.