Thank you for fresh baguettes...

I've been making bread one way or another since my schooldays when my domestic science teacher, Mrs McDonald, taught us how to make a plaited milk loaf - which became a firm family favourite with homemade strawberry jam and cream for Sunday afternoon teas.  Something I've not made since I left home, I realise now.  Over the last forty or more years, I've made bread the 'proper' way by hand, I've used my trusty Kenwood, then my bargain purchase from the Kenwood supplier in Johannesburg, a demo bread maker, which was so well used I eventually had to replace it.  All the while resorting periodically to hand-made bread when I've wanted something special or to just feel the joy of the throwing the dough around... And I'm glad to say, have inducted, successfully, a few others to the joy of making bread by hand.  And using the much maligned machine bread-maker...

I feel no shame in promoting bread making by machine.  If it gets people making bread at all, so much the better!  For a number of years I lived to far from anywhere to buy fresh bread, had too little time to hand-make bread and frozen bread wasn't an option, so the bread maker was a marvellous stopgap, which I would rather not live without!  Having run a guest house for a number of years, the guests loved the smell of newly made bread when they came for breakfast in the mornings.  All cleverly made whilst I was still in my bed...

So what has now brought me to this site, was trying to decide whether or not to treat myself to a vastly reduced Emile Henry baguette maker.  Which I bought, and have now used three times with not bad results.  Today, however, I need to share the results and in needing to record my recipe before I forget it, I decided to do so here as a thank you to all those who have contributed to the site to date.