Back to baking

Light and fluffy

One of the disadvantages of having to cook on a gas barbeque during the summer months is that baking nice treats for the family becomes a bit of an issue. Don’t get me wrong, I can and have baked buns, bread, cakes, puddings and even Yorkshire puddings on the gas barbeque. No, the issue is that baking on a heat source which isn’t sealed and is, therefore, unregulated to a large degree, requires a whole new set of skills and takes longer, using a significant amount of gas.

Baking up an appetite ….

There is something really calming about baking and I find that this is especially true of bread making, not the mechanised version, you understand, but the good old fashioned, arm achingly, satisfying hand made version.

Several years ago, when she found out that I made bread by hand, my well meaning but misguided mother-in-law bought me a lovely bread making machine, thinking that I would appreciate the labour saving properties it had to offer. Unfortunately, I found that, as well as making bread, it created a whole new raft of jobs for me, like cleaning it and the various measuring utensils it seemed to require me to use or lifting half the cupboard contents in and out each time I needed to get it out or put it away.