Jottage from Lancaster - River Cottage Bread

I bought the River Cottage Bread Handbook. I didn't really mean to, and optimistically put it into my Amazon Shopping Basket in the hope that one day I would get it. Then John ordered something else and it piggy-backed on to his order. So now I have it for myself.

There are 40 pages devoted to the skill of making a loaf (and yet only 15 to making a clay oven in 3 days...). I have made bread before - indeed my grandfather was a baker so I was taught how to make it by my mother, who had learnt by osmosis some of her father's techniques for kneading. However, this book is nothing like that and I am learning it all from new - which is no bad thing as I never could get the hang of baking white bread.  


Armed with a bag of organic unbleached strong white flour (which seems to tick all the boxes) I embarked on my 40 page recipe. I was somewhat disconcerted to find that these 40 pages didn't actually include a recipe at all but it was just a step-by-step account of how to make bread. Some investigation and I found what I was looking for tucked away on page 78. I carefully measured all the ingredients and went in with both hands enthusiastically kneading. This was quite soothing and pleasant for a while, but after about 15 minutes my arms were hurting and it seemed obvious that when I stretched the dough, it would never come out as thin as a pair of tights, as it should. I began to remember nice thick winter 80 denier tights from M and S, but even so it just would stretch obligingly as on the picture. Not only could I not get it down to a pair of tights, I was struggling to get it to look like anything better than an old worn-out Aran sweater. I knew it wasn't right but I just gave up in despair and blamed it on the flour. Luckily, I had used up the last half of the bag and so I can try something else next time.

Ready for first rising

And so the process continued with the kneading and then rising and knocking back. I had always thought you knocked back with your knuckles but I now know better and just poke my fingers into it - but that's not half so satisfying...


I was still worried about the fact that I couldn't stretch it until you could see through it like a pair of tights and so I gave it an extra rising just to be on the safe side. And then I cooked it - and took it out of the oven...

It looked suitably risen and hand-made. Unfortunately, it looked nicer than it was. It's quite dense and so isn't all that comfortable to eat. The troubleshooting bit of the book tells me that it's probably a low gluten flour - and the loaf I made in the machine with the other half of the packet was indeed tasteless and dense in the same way. However, it is eatable (just), and as a first loaf I learnt more about the theory and practice of bread making by having a shot at it - albeit unsuccessfully - than just adding water to a packet in the bread maker. In short - this is the first loaf of many. I am, perhaps, my grandfather's granddaughter after all.

Charles George Layley

Just as a rider - this is my grandfather. But before you panic about the beard and the bread (which could easily get mixed up in all that kneading and knocking back), he's in costume posing for the local rag where he wrote a weekly column as a character called 'Jolly Jarge'. A sort of early blogger really...