Baking a White Bloomer – Yumsville Extraordinare

Today after a lovely morning with Evie, a good church service and a tiny run, a friend came over to bake loaves.

I have tried a Delia recipe rather unsuccessfully for a couple of weeks. On this day I decided it was time to try a Paul Hollywood bread and it did not disappoint. I am trying to achieve a bucket list goal of baking a reliably good white loaf from scratch.

On his BBC iPlayer series ‘Paul Hollywood’s Bread – Classic Bread’ and his related book, it is the first recipe he shares (the link goes to his recipe and short clip of his kneading and folding tips). I love him. Yes I do. He explains everything, why you knead, what happens and gives you little titbits of information such as ‘the classic white bloomer, so named because it blooms in the oven’.

It was a delight to make. We laughed as we pummelled kneaded our dough. We watched in awe as it expanded and expanded and expanded.

Each stage was fun and exciting. Finally, they were baked and cooled. Delicious. Tomorrow we will most certainly be having ‘dippy’ eggs and soldiers.

Mine is on the right. I have learnt a) too much water at once in the mixing stage = soggy dough and the knead never goes quite right afterwards (you can see the difference in the first photo, mine on the right), b) do NOT touch and manipulate your second proved dough (it will shrink and shrivel) and finally c) lots of flour on top makes it look extra delicious.

I’m looking forward to next week’s attempt to see if I can avoid the a) and b) and to do the c)! I really encourage you to try. This was our first attempt at this recipe and it is delicious. The actual mixing and kneading probably only takes 30 minutes and its the proving that takes the time. So, get your shopping list ready (although you may have most ingredients in your cupboards) and bake this Bank holiday weekend.

Baking love

naomi x

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