I love baking - Part I: Bread

I have never done much baking before but for the last couple of months I have discovered this incredible new world of tasty opportunities....baking is totally ace!
I love the pace of baking as you can and sometimes even have to really take your time...suits me! I love the accuracy that's needed on one hand and really getting my hands dirty on the other hand. Well, 'dirty' doesn't quite seem right as being covered in flour and sticky dough does certainly not make me feel dirty but rather exceptionally content and happy.
So I've tried myself on Christmas cookies, fancy cakes, muffins, pizza dough and bread.
I'm probably most happy about the bread-baking as it just tastes so much better than shop-bought, making it is like meditation (well as long as the dough doesn't prove all over the airing cupboard) and eating fresh made bread is pure joy. And if you find the right recipe it's also a very quick and easy thing to do.
So far I've tried out four different recipes, one for Irish Soda bread, Miss Dahl's Musician's breakfast bread and two recipes that I've found on German websites.

Irish Soda Bread

The Irish Soda bread recipe came from my favorite recipe site: BBC Good Food (bbcgoodfood.com). It was very easy to make, no time for proving and tasted lovely and gooey but it's not so much an everyday bread, more a Sunday morning one when you can eat it fresh with butter and jam. It doesn't last very long and because of being so gooey it feels quite heavy to eat - still, definitely worth making again sometime. 

 Second up, Miss Dahl's Musician's breakfast bread....well, of course I had to make it to see how my musician would like it :-)

Miss Dahl's Musician's Breakfast bread

It's a very simple no kneading wholemeal and oat bread that proves twice to make it nice and light. It's great with any topping, sweet or savory or pure just with butter. It lasts quite well (well actually it doesn't as we generally finish it rather swiftly) and is great toasted too.

My favorite so far is the Buckwheat bread from one of the German websites though (sorry forgot to take picture): http://www.marions-kochbuch.de/rezept/1117.htm. It contains a combination of  buckwheat and spelt flour and reminds me of bread bought in German bakeries...quiet firm but not at all dry. You can add a variety of seeds e.g. poppy, sesame, sunflower, pumpkin or line seeds. What amazes me most about this, is that there is no need for kneading or proving - the bread goes into the cold oven and proves away while the oven heats up....so clever! It develops quite a proper crust and tastes healthy and nutty and lovely....

Oh bread oh wonderful fresh bread....it is the most satisfying thing to do....the whole flat smells amazing, it's healthier, tastes better (probably not cheaper though) and makes me feel that little bit more real!
Get baking xxx