Born and Bread

Well the word learning continues, and they're mostly courtesy of Mr Stephen Fry. I've just finished the book and I have mixed feelings. It does come to an end rather unexpectedly, but then I guess if you're going to split your life up into portions for different versions of an autobiography, that's always going to be the case when you don't suddenly drop out of the public eye. Generally I found it an enjoyable read, as I'm a big fan of comedy, and there's lots of links to other performers and programmes I remember such as Saturday Live, The Young Ones (Stephen Fry is on the opposing team when they appeared on University Challenge, and actually appeared on it properly, reaching the final). Hugh Laurie, incidentally, rowed in the boat race. I'd have thought he was too short, but that's probably because he looks short compared to Stephen's six foot five or thereabouts. Anyway - an entertaining read, although Stephen does get a bit self-absorbed at times. I guess that's inevitable in an autobiography, but he does rather repeat the same point.



Anyway - next step as well as tidying up was to start the baking challenge. I followed this recipe. The nice thing about soda bread is that it doesn't need any faffing with kneading or waiting for the bread to rise. Anyway, here's the story in pictures!

First picture shows all the ingredients, laid out on my newly cleaned work surface. Ta-dah!



After that it's pretty much a matter of mixing everything up, no kneading, no waiting for it to prove or anything. Just mix it all up in a bowl. Those scales are rather neat (gadget freak alert) because you can reset them to zero. In other words, you don't have to measure each thing and then pour it into a mixing bowl, just reset to zero, add new ingredient until it reads the correct amount, reset to zero, add next ingredient, etc. In other words, less washing up. This is a GOOD thing!!


Here's a pic of it all with the buttermilk poured in, all ready to mix in. The whole thing only took about five minutes. Still got to stir that in, then "Lightly blend it with your fingers", whatever that means, but it only took a couple of minutes. All jolly quick and easy.

Next, into the oven for half an hour, not much tidying up to do, then take it out and stick it onto a cooling rack. Then taste it. That was the most frustrating bit. In the end I couldn't, and cut a slice when it was still slightly warm. Nomnomnom! Really tasty, can't wait to eat some more of it. Still got to work out how to balance the diet with the baking initiative!