Sublime

Spelt – I love the flavour of spelt. It is an ancient grain of the wheat family that is even mentioned in the Bible. For a while it was out of favour, as the world opted instead for modern, more prolific and easier to grow varieties of wheat, but now its slightly nutty flavour is very much back in fashion. Although spelt flour contains gluten, it i

Each chapter that follows begins with a slightly different dough recipe and, from this ‘parent’ dough, you can bake a vast variety of styles of bread really easily.

Ferment – some bakers use the term ‘levain’, which means the same thing – a piece of dough that has been left at least 4–6 hours to ‘ferment’ and which adds character and flavour and lightens the finished bread. A few of the breads use a ‘poolish’, which is just the name for a particular style of ferment.

Cheesy scones – 180 calories each

AUTOLYSE, AND WHY WE ARE NOT DOING THAT FOR PIZZA I was surprised when I learned that the bread baker’s concept of the autolyse—mixing flour and water and letting it rest for at least 15 minutes before adding salt and yeast—is mostly unheard of in the Italian pizza community. The dough-mixing method used throughout Naples and promoted by the Associ

If you keep back a 200g piece of dough when you make your first batch of bread, you can leave it in the fridge, ‘refreshing it’ from time to time, to develop its flavour.