Whether it's for Christmas, a birthday, a special thank-you or a first home gift, I've put together a list that will tickle the heart of that special baker, or baker-to-be, in your life. All prices are ex-postage/delivery costs, and correct at the time of writing (7/12/2021).
Though under each price-point I've group things together you can buy for about that sum, I've left the list as single ... Read more
BakeryBits is known the world over for making it easy to buy and enjoy excellent and unusual stoneground flours, heritage grains, as well as the finest roller-milled flours used by the best artisan bakers. So, we thought that this year our mince pies should continue that celebration and combine stone-milled flour – from one of our many great millers we stock, or out of your own Mockmill – with ... Read more
This version of panettone I’ve written for you here follows Massari’s now-classic methods, from his & Zoia’s landmark book on sweet dough making, Cresci: The Art of Leavened Dough, but uses commercial yeast as a base for the mother dough. Massai describes this sort of yeasted method as a very respectable alternative to the one made with natural leaven (known as Lievito Naturale, Pasta ... Read more
If you love the flavours on a great panettone and enjoy the ease of making monkey bread - where a bread tin is filled with balls of dough rolled in flavouring – then this combination of the two is for you. I’ve cooked some starch with the milk so the crumb has an extra-soft texture. Easy to make and if you bake it inside one of our panettone paper cases it makes a great gift for ... Read more
The recipe is an old 1950s commercial baker’s recipe for sourdough bagels that uses a sour “old dough”, essentially a piece of dough held over from the previous mixing. As soon as I made it I thought this is exactly the method I’ve been looking for. There’s lots of room for personalising it, using a sour “old dough” mixed very firmly brings out a natural ... Read more
This Japanese bread using fresh milk, thick double cream and pure honey has an extra-soft fluffy white crumb with a slightly rich and sweet flavour: it’s sometimes called Hokkaido Milk Bread 北海道生クリーム食パン, or more simply, Shokupan. This recipe is inspired by a version from the renowned Japanese baking school Mamapan. ... Read more
This is an easy bread to make by hand that stays very soft for days without turning crumbly, making it for me a perfect sandwich loaf. For the flour I used 2/3rds roller-milled white flour and 1/3rd stoneground rye and wholemeal which gives you a great flavour and higher fibre than a regular white flour, but still keeps it light-textured. If you're looking for a Japanese-style extra-soft white ... Read more
Merry Christmas to all you inspiring bakers. If you’re reading this in December it’s officially the start of the annual festive baking season but if you’re reading this in a European summer please put the slice of Christmas cake down and get some sun and exercise outside. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with a little Christmas cheer all year round but for me, at least if not for you, winter ... Read more
Rich with butter, combining three delicious grains – wheat, rye and spelt – in one very delicious easy-to-make pastry. I used stoneground rye and spelt flours, packed with flavour and texture, combined with roller-milled white bread flour that allows the pastry to roll out easily. The whisky helps to deepen the flavour: you can replace it with water, which will cause the pastry will ... Read more
Have so enjoyed making panettone these last months, from super simple to the complex marvel in the video below, and though I’ll tell you more about my long road to panettone “awakening” I was only able to tackle the complex mixing needed thanks to the power and reliability of IGF Fornitalia's dependable mixers now supplied by BakeryBits in the UK. Founded in 1974 by Giancarlo ... Read more
A crisp, nutty, sugary topping for panettone, with a slight crunch from the ground cornmeal and a hint of chocolate from the cocoa. It can be made up to a week ahead and stored in a sealed container in the refrigerator. Rice flour gives a more enjoyable texture to the ‘glassa’ when you chew it – in Italy a mixture of potato starch and rice flour is often used – but if you need to ... Read more
I'm writing this in the run-up to Christmas, and if you're like me, you're probably wondering what to make beyond the usual mince pies and some fantastic loaves of bread: a big ol’ fruit cake, maybe, or a yule log? Perhaps you're also finding that it gets trickier every year to find the right gifts for the budding bakers in your family, or something to hint that you'd be more than happy to ... Read more
You'll find a number of different yeasts available at BakeryBits. Which one should you choose, how are they different from each other, and how should they be used?
Some yeasts are general purpose, while others are selected and cultivated for a particular job - raising an enriched dough such as hot cross bun, panettone, for example, or to allow an industrial bakery to introduce yeast at a specific ... Read more
Malt is one of those ingredients that we are familiar with but equally unsure of. Made from grains that have been soaked, left to sprout somewhere warm, then roasted at a low temperature and finally ground, the resulting sweet (almost caramel) powder is used to enhance the rise, crust and crumb colour of breads, and has been used for hundreds of years.
The sweetness in malt comes from enzymes ... Read more
This dish sits somewhere between a caponata, with cooked aubergine and a gentle sweet and sour (what’s known as agrodolce in Italy) flavour, the very comforting dish called peperonata made with roasted peppers and onions. Together with one of our great pasta - like Mulino Marino's Giant Spiral Pasta, or South Devon Pasta Co Hand-made Einkorn Fusilli - it makes a delicious lunch or supper ... Read more
The beauty of malt powders, syrups and grains is how their complex flavours and colours occur directly from nature’s own transformation process. As grains sprout, sugars are created, then slow drying and toasting enhances their sweet flavour, and the result is malt. So in this loaf, whole grains and four different types of malt combine with cooked pumpkin and toasted hazelnuts to create the most ... Read more
Sometimes, I've written recipes which use specific types of flour from small millers, and it may be that they won't always be in stock. If that's the case, do feel free to substitute something similar from the BakeryBits range. Here, for example, I’ve made a walnut sourdough using Heritage Harvest flours, combining their Roller-Milled White Flour with their darker Organic Stoneground Wholemeal ... Read more
This is the basic pizza dough that I use when I want a good thin crust. And to get an extra-crisp base I bake them on a Welsh Baking Stone, place on a rack in the oven, and just shovel the pizza onto it with a pizza peel.
Personally, I add a little more water than the recipe uses here to make the dough extra soft and easy to shape and toss, but try this wetter approach later when you’ve got the ... Read more
