Bread Success!

Chaps!! It's so lovely to see you this dull foggy morning. From reading a selection of my favourite blogs it seems that it is only my end of the country that is enshrouded in this yucky weather, everyone else is talking about a heatwave!! Still, I am making do with my sunset blanket, which certainly has enough bright colours in it!! The blanket is now wide enough to snuggle under whilst continuing to crochet which is the best bit I think. Bizarrely though, I seem to have lost a ripple somewhere, as, laying it out flat, the bottom as 22 'humps' and the top that I am currently working on has 21. But I can't understand where the extra hump has gone!!

One of the reasons I am desperately waiting for sunshine is because I want to photograph my latest stitchery so that I can include photos of it in the PDF I am making up. Currently all photos come out really quite dull looking and I don't want bad photography to spoil the 'product'.

Do you like this piece? I am very pleased with it, especially as it all came out of the creative tangle that is my brain, flowing onto the paper and easily translating into stitches and colours. Yup, quite chuffed.

My success story of the day is my new found bread making skills! Not that they are real bread making skills you understand, as it is no knead bread and therefore all that is required is some stirring, a lot of waiting, some shaping and some cooking!!

The recipe is all over the Internet, so you can just Google it until you find one that you like, but (as usual) mine came from Attic 24 and can be found here.
I was a bit wary at first, lots of people have been raving about it; it's so easy, so reliable, "I make one every day for breakfast"... But I don't have that amazing a track record with baking so there was a lot of pleading and talking to the dough asking it to do what it is supposed to. The above photo shows what it looked like in the evening when I left it to rise, please rise.

And this is the monster I came down to in the morning!!! Super super SUPER sticky!!!! Definitely put down a sheet of baking paper to shape the dough on, otherwise you will never get it off the work top (very stubborn dough).

I was still slightly concerned as, although warned about the stickiness, surely it wasn't meant to be quite so sticky? Ziggy wasn't worried though. Lots of flour and some shaping later, I managed to get the dough into a vague loaf shape. It doesn't want to stay in shape though and flattens out when you leave it- hence wrapping it up in clingfilm.

A heated iron pot and 30 minutes later and I lift the lid, holding my breath...... bingo!!!! It looks like bread, it smells like bread!!!! You leave the lid off of the pot and pop back into the oven for 15 minutes to brown, and then it comes out looking like....

...this!!!! Fantastic isn't it???

And it was totally delicious!!! Especially warm with lots of butter. The Brother inhaled about three slices in one go!!
(Plus, I immediately started on a new loaf which is browning in the oven now. This time I added lots of Rosemary and the kitchen is smelling divine!)