A bready miracle

Well, here's a first! I've made bread on and off (more off than on) for most of my adult life. I do make acceptable small rolls, but free form loaves, the kind I've yearned to master, have been a little flat. No matter how much I tucked them in, they always spread and while they were nice enough (if a little dense) I have never achieved that fluffy inner one desires. So last night I had another attempt. This time I kneaded the dough for nearly half an hour. After two rises, and with a slight sigh, I made a traditional cob loaf. Imagine my surprise when it stayed in one shape, apart from rising beautifully. With trepidation I gently put it in the oven. Even then it didn't flop. Instead I got a lovely, bosomy, thin crusted loaf with a soft and holey interior. It actually felt and tasted like real bread. It may never happen again, but it did happen once.

Daily bread

I have always been lousy at making bread, and put it down to the old saw about hot hands making good bread and cold hands making fine pastry. With bad circulation I fall in the latter category, and my pastry passes muster. However, I have wondered if the lack-of-rising-abilities of my bread had more to do with the coolness of the cottage - with no central heating, draughts and a closet sized kitchen which opens directly onto the back yard - then any feebleness on my part. So, Wednesday last, on one of the hottest days of the year, I had the bright idea of giving it another go...and to make a whole chicken soup, just for extra punishment. We are lucky enough to live near a working flour mill, FWP Matthews - not a nice romantic spinning one, more like a Victorian orphanage, but it does make wonderful flour, especially the Cotswold Crunch, which I was using this time - 1lb of that to half a pound of white flour. Ordinary quick rise dried yeast, whack a slug of olive oil in, pinch of salt, bit of brown sugar in the warm water to mix with, and away I went, no buggering about.

I was determined this time; I kneaded that dough as if my life depended on it, and tucked it tightly undeneath until it could be tucked no more. And waited. In the sweltering heat, like a behemoth rising from the sea, my loaf rose. With a beating heart I gently manouvered the quivering mound into the little baby Belling 2 ring oven, '*handily* positioned behind the kitchen door.

It worked. It had a dense but soft texture, nutty flavour and crisp crust. It lasted 24 hours and then there were only a few crumbs to prove it ever existed at all. I no longer feel like a failure in breadland. It took about 20 minutes to make, plus rising/cooking time (roughly 1.30 hours in all) and cost about 50p. It doesn't solve the essential problem of how to bake in winter - it may just be a case of leaving it to rise for a very long time. But winter still seems a long way off...