From working as a photographer in the early 90s he found pastry and breadmaking a much better fit. His first book “Baking With Passion” (1999), won Guild of Food Writers’ Cookbook of the Year. His next, the breakthrough sourdough book “The Handmade Loaf” (2004) was awarded Observer Newspaper’s “20 best cookbooks" in the last two decades. Short & Sweet (2011), won Andre Simon Cookbook of the Year. He writes regularly for newspapers and magazines across the globe.
The golden layer of onion and almond mix adds a squishy delicious creaminess to the centre and melds together the crisp roasted vegetables with the fried bread. Yes, the title is deceiving, it does say it’s a grilled sandwich but in truth it’s a fried one, and all the better for it.
The other twist to this recipe is that it uses a wholegrain bread, and it boosts the flavour tenfold. ... Read more
Here at BakeryBits we embrace vegan recipes whenever we can, and help veganise ("veganize" with US-spelling) recipes, as it allows us to put more of the world’s extraordinary vegetables, fruits, grains and seeds in our diet, rather than ever being denied great food.
For many of us, our baking and cooking approach can get stuck in a groove. Food traditions are built on habit and to some ... Read more
A rich, vibrant vegan tomato soup to suit those cold days when you need a hearty bowl of something comforting but not complicated. Here I’ve used one of the ancient grains available from BakeryBits, Einkorn, much as you would use pearl barley in a soup, but with a flavour that’s much more nutty and delicious.Makes 2 large servings, or 4 smaller bowls
Method
Place the Einkorn or ... Read more
Like a supercharged granary loaf this malted sandwich bread recipe combines BakeryBits range of grains and seeds – sunflower, linseed, oats, pumpkin, and corn – with one of my favourite flours from way back. Matthew’s Organic Cotswold Crunch is a white wheat flour mixed with powdered malt and rolled and toasted malted barley grains. Making an exceptional granary-style sandwich bread: perfect ... Read more
For the very best breakfast you need a great English-style muffin, baked on a griddle inside muffin rings. So, if you get one of our BakeryBits custom-made Welsh Baking Stones and a few of BakeryBits Handmade Heavy-Duty Stainless Crumpet Rings, you'll find that making them becomes addictive and a pleasure.
The crumpet rings help the muffin to rise as they keep the muffin’s edges soft, and ... Read more
Though I’ve called this white bread, the flour I’ve used here is a French stoneground variety from the Foricher les Moulins, near Paris, called Farine de Meule and it produces a crumb with a light caramel colour and a rich wheaten flavour. It’s not 100% wholemeal as it has only some of the bran finely milled into it, meaning that it has a close crumb (fewer air bubbles) compared ... Read more
Simple flatbreads can easily be made at home using BakeryBits’ traditional Welsh Bakestone: a handy steel plate, often called a griddle, that sits on a stovetop. Perfect for cooking all kinds of flatbreads as you can get a spatula underneath the edge of the bread easily without the nuisance of a frying-pan’s rim.
This easy yeast-free recipe uses two-thirds wholemeal flour and ... Read more
What a year 2021 was. I hope that you’ve been able to bring friends and family together with your baking, and found some joy and happiness during a difficult time.
Like many of you I’ve found moments very tough, and wondered where on earth we’re headed. But thanks to so many of you there have also been many sweet days, laughs, and inspiration for the year ahead. At BakeryBits ... Read more
A trio of grains – wheat and rye flours, plus oats - give this simple soda bread lots of flavour. The porter, a kind of very dark beer (Guinness is a porter), adds both dark colour and a gentle hoppy malted flavour which I like, but you can replace it with the equivalent amount of water or milk with 10g Organic Meridian Fairtrade Blackstrap Molasses, or 5g of our Roasted Barley Malt Powder ... Read more
Making your first loaf of bread, and you want something that's like a regular white loaf but a bit more special? Then this very easy almost-white loaf will be a great place to start. Quick to mix together, almost no kneading, and rich with flavour. You can make it with all-white flour but start with a little experimentation. Choose one of BakeryBits superb stoneground flours – like ... Read more
Though a simple icing can be made by mixing together icing sugar and water until smooth, it sets with a dull surface and a brittle texture that can fall off pastries. This is because sucrose, what icing sugar technically is, recrystallizes as it cools. Adding glucose, another kind of sugar, to the sucrose interferes with this recrystallization and creates a semi-glossy sheen to the icing and ... Read more
A rich but simple-to-make bake-stable custard perfect for piping into pastries before baking. Or to use when cold whisk together with double cream for the most luxurious custard imaginable. A perfect way to show off our BakeryBits Madagascan Whole Pod Vanilla Powder.
The custard powder just adds a little extra yellow colour to the cream, but you can simply use cornflour (cornstarch) as the ... Read more
Our BakeryBits Christmas recipe is a 1950s sweet candied-fruit focaccia with flavours reminiscent of a great panettone, the crumb swirled with sugary ground almonds in a Sfogliato-style, and of course using the very best ingredients available to you here at BakeryBits, delivered fast. Easy to make, the perfect small gift for friends when you visit this Christmas.
It's based on an old 1940s sweet ... Read more
A dark rich fruit cake with a tang of sourdough that slices well and keeps for a few months perfectly if wrapped well and stored in a tin. The crème fraiche is boiled with the sugar and baked into the cake, so like butter it will add richness and keep perfectly well. The excellent Mulino Marino Organic Chestnut Flour adds a subtle earthy background to the sweetness of the fruit and honey.Method
... Read more
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
