Another hot morning gave me the energy to make my own bread. This time I used spelt flour, admittedly healthier than plain flour, though the bread is rather on a heavy side and doesn't rise a lot. It came out lovely - really crispy crust, and very interesting taste. I'm still astounded by how easy it is to make your own bread - and all the stuff about bread makers is rubbish. You need flour, yeast and water, plus an ordinary oven to bake it in, that's really it! The ingredients I used for this bread: 0.5 kilo spelt flour 1 teaspoon of dried yeast a pinch of salt a pinch of sugar a few table spoons of lukewarm milk water Everything starts with the yeast - pour it into milk (important - milk cannot be either hot or cold, or the yeast won't work). Stir the yeast until it dilutes, add sugar and leave in a warm place to activate. The mixture is ready to use when it gets frothy. Pour it into a large bowl with flour and knead, adding water as needed. The dough n...

It's been a good while since I last posted here. I've got quite a bit on my plate at the moment, and we're looking for a new place to live, so the 24 hours in a day often does not feel enough! Anyway, the May break (over a week off!!!) proved to be a good moment to slow down and indulge myself in cooking again. The weather has been truly fabulous in the last few days - bright, sunny and the temperatures reaching nearly 30C, you may get the impression the summer has come! Not quite, but not far off either.  Today, I got up and had a real craving for nice, crusty bread. As May 3rd is a bank holiday in Poland the shops will mostly be closed, and even if they're open, getting nice, fresh bread might be nothing more than wishful thinking today. I resorted to making bread myself - I tried a recipe for an olive bread, which disappeared from our plates in a matter of minutes, so I consider it a success! ;-) For the bread you need: 0.5 kilo of plain all purpose flou...