I am thrilled to announce that The Cook’s Digest has been honoured for our contributions towards the pizza food scene, following on from our award a year ago for Vietnamese food blogging. Once again, the good folks at feedspot.com have recognised us as a major contributing to all things pizza!
I’ve garnered a wealth of bread-making knowledge from many sources, the most influential being Dan Lepard and Ken Forkish. I decided to combine a Lepard recipe and Forkish technique to bake one of the best breads so far – the sour cream loaf. It has a delicious, tangy faux sourdough flavour and makes the most amazing toast.
Continue reading “Sour Cream Loaf”
Most bread recipes in this blog, such as for the the loaves above, use a minimal knead method. In this post we explore how and why this works …
Continue reading “Minimal Kneading – A Basis for Great Bread”
One of my favourite aromas is that of freshly baked bread, even beating a good red wine. And it’s easy to make a crusty, tasty loaf at home with virtually no effort.
My go-to home baking book is Short and Sweet by Dan Lepard. Not just a recipe compilation it is, in Dan’s own words, a “blueprint for great home baking”, imparting much wisdom in a concise and approachable style.
The “eureka” moment was minimal knead bread-making. A slow, steady rise, interjected with 15 second kneads, it is a good fit for home baking in the maelstrom of modern life.
Dan is a master across the field of baking. His book covers cakes, biscuits, desserts, pizza and even beer-battered fish!
The book can be purchased from amazon.co.uk in either hardback or Kindle format.
Starting at the beginning is always a good idea, so with venturing into the world of cooking I did just that. Cheese on toast was already in the bag, so how about trying to make the bread for it? This is what happened …
The Cook's Digest 