Sunday, April 09, 2006

Flour Power...

Following yesterday's disastrous foray into the art of baking, I was determined not to give up without a fight. Casting aside all memories of my very moist (i.e. soggy) choc-mint sponge, I thought I'd try something even more ambitious and attempt a loaf of bread. After all, if it's harder to bake bread than cake (so I'm told) then I will have compensated for yesterday's mis-hap and the weekend will have been an overall success.

However, just to stack the odds a little more in my favour, I went out this afternoon to treat myself to one of these:



Cheating? Maybe, but if the blurb is to be believed then it is the equivalent of a magic box. You just throw all of the ingredients in, hit the button, leave it for a few hours and hey presto, one loaf of bread. Or a cake. Or pizza dough. Or a multitude of other delights for that matter.

While I was catching up on things I've been meaning to buy, I also picked up one of these today:



You can imagine the wonderful aroma around the house all afternoon.

So while the bread was baking, I've been experimenting with espressos, lattes, cappuccinos and regular filter coffee. How did my loaf of bread turn out? Excellent - take a look here. Which is just as well as I'll probably eating it for the next 72 hours wondering why I can't get to sleep...


Update: 8:25pm
Oh dear, it looks like I could be in trouble here. It's finally cooled enough to slice and it was all could do to not devour it all in one go. I knew I should have started with a bigger loaf...

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Woohoo!
Cappucinos and bagels for breakfast.You can go to work now Seany fed like a King.
The only fly in the ointment is that everything shop bought tastes bland. We expect buns on friday night at the Tap.
A Chelsea one for Scooter and suitable ones for the rest of us!!

delcatto said...

For the Nasa coffee machine, try some of the Ethiopian coffee beans.
Beautiful aroma and the taste is superb.
I've still got the 'boil in an Italian coffee pot on the stove' approach but I do have an electric coffee grinder. No wonder I couldn't sleep the two weeks after Christmas!
Cheers,
Dec.

Seany said...

Cheers Dec - I'll make a note of the coffee and give it a go when I've waded through my current stocks.

As for bringing baked goods to the Tap, I doubt they would survive the journey based on todays consumption rate.

Great new blog by the way - I've dropped in and left my mark (so to speak!)

Anonymous said...

I'm still not convinced by bread machines, surely it takes all the fun out of kneading? I'll be round for coffee though, if only to see if it's up to the standard of your tea.

Cherrypie said...

I bought a coffee machine at the weekend too, intended for the office but I forgot to fetch it out of the boot.:(

I already bake my own bread without the aid of a gadget ( although I do cheat and buy the ready-prepared flour mix from Tesco - cheese and herb is my favourite). It's very rare it ever gets the chance to go cold.

I'm hungry and thirsty now. Shame I'm stuck at work with 2 staff off and the other 3 sneezing all over me.

Seany said...

OK, I confess I did look at the pre-mixed flour first but figured if I'm buying the gadget, I ought to at least try it out with something resembling traditional ingredients!

And to be honest Em, I think I would be disappointed if you'd bought a bread machine, especially seeing as you already live with a Baker...