So said William Cobbett: pamphleteer, farmer and parliamentary representative for Oldham in the early part of the 19th century. However, if he had popped round here a couple of months ago he would have changed his tune pretty sharpish: 'with this bread, all is misery'. I had a go at making sourdough bread after reading plenty about how wonderful it is. I remain unconvinced. While the starter worked fine and the actual 'dough' seemed to do ok, the end result was disappointing. Brick-like and tasteless. It wasn't helped by the fact I forgot to add salt to the flour and tried to hide this mistake by serving the bread with salt on top.
So I have gone back to 'regular' bread. I'm now at the stage where I can make a few loaves a week without too much faffing or swearing, and they can be frozen until needed. We both take 'bagging' to our day jobs and a few slices always comes in useful. Usually the chore needs to be done when the heating is on so the dough will rise but now it is getting a bit warmer during the day it seems to come up with no problem.
On a visit to Buxton in February we found a shop that sold the old type of bread tin, not the fancy non-stick ones, and I have two of those for 1lb loaves, plus a 1lb non-stick one bought in an emergency. The 3lb of flour plus yeast and water makes three loaves as well as between 8-12 small buns. As I get more confident I am slowly experimenting with things like rye and spelt flours, wholewheat flakes, herbs and sunflowers seeds. Not all of the results are brilliant, but they are all edible and by my own hand. That's worth a lot to me.
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