Let Them Bake Bread

Hello readers!  2010 was a great year for the Handmade Blog.  My readers came from all over the world, coloring my visitor stats with flags as familiar as the red, white, and blue bars of the U.K. and as foreign as the yellow and orange pennant of Bhutan.  Cypriots, Aussies, Swiss, Trinidadians and Tobagonians, Portuguese, Canadians, Indians, all have come for a visit and for that I’m grateful and humbled.

Since I switched from Vox, right before its spindly legs snapped and the whole thing came down, I’ve been getting more readers searching for everything from the no-knead undead ciabatta to the bathroom remodel.  But the most popular feature by far has been the bread recipes.  So I’ve updated the bread section with a new recipe, one that celebrates our differences and our commonality as a global family:  The Worldwide Family Christmas Bread.  It isn’t a terribly complicated bread and you’ll find it incredibly rewarding just on its own with a smear of butter or as one of a hundred menu items at a holiday feast.

I’ve also updated many of the bread recipes with some slight variations in amounts I’ve noticed over the last year of baking.  In general my liquid amounts were slightly too high and I ended up adding more flour as I kneaded.  Please keep in mind this is just for my flour blend, so you may find it still has too much liquid or is too dry and will say naughty words while you wrestle with unwieldy dough.  As I say on the bread page, my recipes are merely the springboard for your imagination.  I’d love to hear if you’ve tried the recipes and if you made any changes.

This year I’ll be trying out even more breads, from a sourdough ciabatta to some savory breads with cheese and nuts.  As always I’m working on my sourdough in the never-ending quest for the perfect rustic bread, and will report on my failures and successes.

Happy New Year to everyone and please have some bread!

About Peter Soutowood

Writer, architect, father, husband.