A quick note to let you know about two baking events this week:
From Eden to London: bread and chocolate events next week
Next week I’ll be doing two baking events: demonstrating breadmaking, from sourdough to everyday, at 2:30pm on Monday 3rd October the Eden Project in Cornwall; and then later that week on Thursday 6th October at 6:30pm I’ll be demonstrating chocolate baking at Waterstone’s in Piccadilly. Both will be intense with secrets and tips to make sure you leave with a much better idea on how to avoid those bits in your baking you want to change. If you want to stop your bread going soft after baking, get a chocolate cake that’s extra soft and rich, or just make your baking that bit easier and less stressful then I’ll help you achieve just that.
From Crop to Crust event, Sat 16th April, Stratford-upon-Avon
This Saturday 16th April I’ll be speaking at “From Crop to Crust” conference, aiming to encourage more bakers to use the flour milled at their local windmills and watermills around Britain. Organised by The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, in association with the Traditional Cornmillers Guild and Sustain’s Real Bread Campaign, we’re hoping to tackle the issues that have made the connection between baker and miller problematic in the past: getting the flour that the baker wants to bake with and the miller is happy to mill, deliveries from short-staffed mills to busy small bakeries, getting customers to pay more for loaves that are made with hand-milled flours that struggle to compete in price with cheap flour from the supermarket. (more…)
Finding flavour in coffee
I drank my first real coffee in Italy. It was back in 1979, I was 15, in Milan on my own, sitting in the grand apartment of Anna Piaggi and Vern Lambert in Via San Martino. Books and beautiful objects seemed to fill every shelf and table, and watercolour illustrations by Antonio Lopez were set out on Anna’s dining room table. And on a tray tucked close to the edge of the table were tiny cups of espresso.