I’ve had a few months break from baking – having a little one takes a lot of your time!! No matter how many people tell you, you won’t know till it actually happens to you.

 Anywho, the little monkey is asleep and I can update my blog with the recent bakes, got a bit of a backlog to get through.

 Today’s post is about lemon cupcakes – I know its not bread, but its baking, so I figured that its worth blogging about - link here.

 I apologise for the pictures in advance, I only have my iPod to take photos with, and they are not that great.  

Just a quick post - a basic wholemeal bread, lovely texture and mild sourdough flavour - that one is a keeper

As always, more photos and recipe on my blog here

I seem to be going through a “dud” phase – two below the average sourdoughs in the row. Tried a multigrain rye, and it was a disaster, all grey inside and looks like a brink. Another rye this morning – same problem, haven’t cut it yet, but it doesn’t look promising.

To cheer myself up I’ve decided to make a pie – can’t recommend a better way to cheer you up. Wonderfully tangy and full of blueberry goodness, it was gone in less than 5 hours :)

 Full recipe on my blog

Last weekend was a bit of a baking adventure for me – instead of trialling out a well established recipe somehow I ended up experimenting with two new recipes :

Malty Seeded Loaf and Vodka Cranberry Loaf. I know it sounds a bit crazy, but I must say I am really pleased with both of them. Especially the vodka one – a week later, and I can still smell the vanilla in the air. Oh, that’s making me hungry again.

Full recipes and photos on my blog

For Malty Seeded one

And

For Vodka Cranberry one

There are a lot of posts on activating a starter on this wonderful website and I thought I’d add my two pennies worth and get a chance to show off my hubby’s wonderful photos :)

My starter is taking over the world, well, taking overUKat least and I thought I’d share my feeding schedule with the rest of you and open a forum for questions / comments.

Also, I would like to know why would you keep waters (raisin water, apple water, etc.) that started popping up in a lot of recipes on this side AS WELL as a starter – whats the difference, advantages of one over another?

 Full post and lots of photos on my blog here

An emergency bake,  supplies of bread are running low, Mexican chilli on the go for dinner and I have nothing to go with it. To me all of that calls for a soft and buttery corn bread – I wanted to use starter as it was bubbling away nicely but due to time constrains I had to use some commercial yeast as well.

I am very very happy with the result – lovely and crumbly corn bread with whole corn kernels and a touch of chilli. It only lasted a day, and I haven’t even had a chance to try it toasted – I can imagine it would toast really well.

Full recipe and lots of photos (including in-progress ones) on my blog here

iPhone quality photos this time, didn't have time to get the big camera out

Posted a little bit later than intended, but its out there now, my mid-week bake, another attempt at a Honey WholeWheat and a Chocolate Sour Cherry loaves.

I am trying to achieve that lovely soft wholewheat texture you find in American breads – think gourmet WholeFoods and delis type, not the horrible Subway kind that squashes in your hand.

I am quite please with that I got at the end, probably a bit more room to play with the recipe – it didn’t spring in the oven as much as I hoped, but the flavour is very close to what I have in mind.

The other one, Chocolate Sour one was a spur of the moment thing, really. I am not really into chocolate breads, especially not the ones that use cocoa powder, I find them too sweet and not chocolaty enough. I found some lovely Valrhona chocolate in my sweets box and some dried sour cherries in the pantry – why not? Sounds like they go together, lets give it a go.

I do like the chocolate in it, especially after you’ve toasted it and the chocolate goes all soft and melty. Could do with more sour cherries, as the cherry flavour isn’t particularly strong, I just didn’t have any more at hand.

I will be trying both of these recipes again, that’s for sure

Full recipes and more photos on my blog

I have been thinking about making challah for a while now. I do like proper Jewish challah, with its lovely soft and buttery texture, seeing the actual folds and strands in each slice. I have tried making challah twice before with mixed results – this time I’ve decided to make up my own recipe, roughly based on my previous attempts, pure sourdough, with saffron and vanilla.

I’ve decided that I like the flavour of brioche better than challah, to me brioche has a stronger flavour (much MUCH more butter in brioche recipe) , however, challah does look pretty and saffron makes things a bit more interesting.

Full recipe and more photos on my blog here

I've made this recipe mid-week and only just got around to taking a photo to go with the blog. Just in time too, cause there is only about a third of loaf left - a very popular little bread that ia.

The idea for a banana bread came from  Shiao-Ping's blog (which does look amazing by the way), but I wanted something a little bit ligher and more brioche-like. I had three super ripe bananas left in a fruit bowl and a jar of peanut butter with my name on it, just begging to be spread on toast and munched up.

Here we are, a light, fluffy banana bread that is just so perfect with a bit of butter, topped with lots of peanut butter - super crunchy type too - yumm.....

Full recipe and more photos on my blog here

London is going through a heat wave, its hot, properly hot, which means my starter is going super mental and I have to think of new ways of using it and new bread recipes.

This post inspiration came from a glass of orange juice and a bit of nagging from my husband. Result - two loaves of bread, a whiskey orange bread and a seeded bread, one for my breakfast (I am into sweet toast at the moment) and one for my dear husband to satisfy his seeded, crunchy bread craving.

More photos and full recipes on my blog here