Adventures in Food

You may know that we started making our own bread last year when we were on the local diet, as none of our suppliers knew where the flour was grown, that they used in their bread making. So we had little choice. But we just threw some flour, yeast and water into a bowl. slopped it a bout and baked it after rising. It was very delicious but it was on the dense and cakey side and it went hard quite quickly. The other day though, I bought an amazing book (after spending about an hour browsing in Kew bookshop and knocking books over) called Bread Matters by Andrew Whitley (who runs Village Bakery , so admittedly he has a bias but also he knows a hell of a lot about bread), which explains both how most processed or shop bread is made (even the really sexy nice stuff is all made by the same 'Chorleywood bread process') and how yeast and lactic acid bacteria work on wholewheat to extract nutrients and flavour and reduce the presence of common allergens. The book also shows how to mak...

These are SO easy to make, last for ages,are delicious and healthy so I think a great recipe even if you aren't out seeking wild oats. Oat cakes basically involve oats, water, a pinch of salt, and a little fat. You warm up some water and mix in a bit of butter to melt. Then mix that warm liquid into your oats in a bowl until they are of a nice pasty, sticky consistency. Roll them out on a board - you can use a few more oats or some flour to reduce stickiness if you like, and bake in a medium oven for about 15 min on baking parchment paper. Keep an eye on them to see when they are ready. Rolled oats are better because they have been softened up a bit and the starch powder helps to stick them all together. As you can see I got all romantic with them. I hardly ever get to use thes nice pastry cutters from Anna so thats another good reason to make oat cakes. I believe the scots used to leave the oat cakes by the fire overnight to dry out so I guess a low oven is also suitable. They ar...