No Pubgods, no Pubmasters

*whistling starts*

Me: 

callout posts in 2015: this user is stealing bones from cemeteries for witch rituals!

callout posts in 2016: this user Actually A Nazi

callout posts in 2017: this user watches an anime I don’t like

callout posts in 2018: i went through this user’s youtube like history and found a video from JonTron that they liked in 2012, proving that they’re a bad person

callout posts in 2019: this user plays E-Rated Video Games, which are meant for children, which seems pretty sus to me idk :/

Here’s @dduane​’s first take on it and the finished product. We’ve made even more photogenic batches since.

Kneading is easy as well; either let your machine do it, or if you don’t want to or don’t have one, get hands-on. It’s like mixing two colours of Plasticine to make a third. Flatten, stretch, fold, half-turn, repeat - it takes about 10 minutes - until the gloopy conglomeration of flour, yeast, salt and water that clings to your hands at the beginning, becomes a compact ball that doesn’t stick to things and feels silky-smooth.

Here’s what before and after look like.

My Mum used to say that if you were feeling out of sorts with someone, it was good to make bread because you could transfer your annoyance into kneading the dough REALLY WELL, and both you and the bread would be better for it.

Then you put it into a bowl, cover it with cling-film and let it rise until it doubles in size, turn it out and “knock it back” (more kneading, until it’s getting back to the size it started, this means there won’t be huge “is something living in here?” holes in the bread), put it into your loaf-tin or whatever - we’ve used a regular oblong tin, a rectangular Pullman tin with a lid, a small glass casserole, an earthenware chicken roaster…

You can even use a clean terracotta flowerpot.

Let the dough rise again until it’s high enough to look like an unbaked but otherwise real loaf, then pop it in the preheated oven. On average we give ours 180°C / 355°F for 45-50 minutes. YM (and oven) MV.

Here’s some of our bread…

Here’s our default bread recipe - it takes about 3-4 hours from flour jar to cutting board depending on climate (warmer is faster) most of which is rise time and baking; hands-on mixing, kneading and knocking-back is about 20 minutes, tops, and less if using a mixer.

Here ( or indeed any of the other pics) is the finished product. This one was given an egg-wash to make it look glossy and keep the poppy-seeds in place; mostly we don’t bother with that or the slash down the middle, but all the extras were intentional as a “ready for my close-up” glamour shot.

I think any shop would be happy to have something this good-looking on their shelf. We’re happy to have it on our table.

Even if your first attempts don’t work out quite as well as you hope, you can always make something like this…