BOOK REVIEW: BREAD

Bread by Daniel Stevens

I first learned to bake a cake when I was 18 and living in Cape Town. The matriarch of the family I was staying with taught me a great recipe for chocolate cake and coffee cake, now sadly forgotten. On my return to the UK my mum taught me to bake bread, and as a student I made pretty much all my own bread, and had to defend it against my marauding housemates who were surviving on the nastiest plastic bread they could spend the least amount of money on. I had some interesting baking experiences, and doubt there are many other people who have attempted to make croissants in the middle of the Namib desert.

Since getting married the bread making duties have gradually devolved to Grace, who normally gets her hands floury a couple of times a week, and it has been a few years since I turned my hand to it.

However, I was talking with a friend recently who was in the middle of building a clay bread oven in his garden. This is the kind of project that appeals to me, so I got hold of this book that contains the instructions. I haven’t built the oven yet, but inspired by Stevens’ yeastiness have spent a pleasant few hours playing with dough. So far I have made breadsticks and roti, malted seed loaf and regular wholemeal bread, and I have a sourdough starter bubbling away in the kitchen.

I have also taken an angle-grinder to a paving slab and cut it down to the right size for my cooker, as bread is happiest when it bakes on a hot stone, and I want my bread to be happy.

This is a great little book, written by the baker at Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage enterprise. It is very clear, humorous, and easy to follow. There is something magical about mixing flour and water and producing something so delicious, and so basic to human life. It gives a greater comprehension of what Jesus meant when he described himself as, ‘the bread of life’.

When we finally move out of rented accommodation into our own place I intend to build my clay oven. In the meantime I am enjoying the yeasty smell of my kitchen.

Go on – give it a go. Its not that difficult.