Notebook
Short notes on what went right and wrong, kept since the site began. Changes to the recipes usually start here.
The first bag of this year’s rye from the small mill by the lake we drive past every summer. New flour smells sweeter, and my first loaf with it needed a little less water than my notes said. I held back two spoonfuls and wrote the change on the inside of the cupboard door, which is where all my real notes live.
Twenty-eight degrees in the kitchen and the sponge was ready in eight hours instead of fourteen. The loaf rose too far while I was out and sank a little in the oven. For the rest of the heatwave: sponge mixed with cool water at bedtime, dough at seven, bread out before lunch. The planner now has a warm-kitchen setting for exactly this.
My starter came from my aunt’s kitchen in a jam jar, more than ten years ago. People ask whether an old starter makes better bread. Honestly, I do not think the age matters much; what matters is that it has been fed rye and baked with every week, so it is strong and predictable. I still keep a dried backup in an envelope, just in case.
Two plain, one scalded with extra malt, and one with sunflower seeds for my nephew, who says caraway is like chewing pencils. Rye bread is at its best next to the heavy things on the Christmas table, the blood sausage, sauerkraut and roast pork, where its sourness cuts through.
First cold week, and the bread tin filled up with ends nobody wanted. I dried them in the oven after a bake, soaked them overnight and we had soup on Sunday. The recipe now says to toast the bread first, which makes the soup darker and less pasty.
A friend in Edinburgh tried my recipe with a different flour and got a brick. Hers was much finer and took far less water. Rather than write a dozen versions, I put the baker’s percentages and a small calculator on the site, so anyone can start from the proportions and adjust to their own flour.
The scalded bread came out the colour of milky coffee instead of nearly black. The malt had been open in the cupboard for over a year and had lost its smell. Fresh malt, the same recipe, and the next loaf was right. If the malt does not smell of coffee and dark bread, it will not colour the loaf.