Introduction

Hello! Welcome! Thank you for joining me on this weird adventure (assuming both that you stick around past this sentence and also that there will be more sentences to stick around for.) The weird adventure is going to be a weekly quest to bake something bready and then write about it, and ideally become a bona fide bread-making-lady on the way.

The motivation for this venture came from a few places, but don’t worry, I will now explain every last one of them to you in excruciating detail.

1. The precipitating event was Christmas. I was given/took upon myself the task of cooking for our family Christmas last year, and the only real bum note in the proceedings was my attempt at challah. I was so excited to make the delicious Jewish bread (yes, I realise it was for Christmas and this all might feel rather un-kosher. It definitely is.) and was extremely irritated by the flat doughy lump that I had so theatrically unveiled. To try and rectify this I went for a do-over on Boxing Day. Results were improved (less flat, less doughy, less lump), but still far from praise-worthy. I felt very strongly that I would like to be the kind of person who turns out good bread effortlessly. And I realized that most things that appear effortless actually require some amount of effort at some point…I would need to practice.
2. I want to write stuff. I have kept two blogs in my life, the first was about my three-month adventure in Europe and the second was about my diabolical attempts to find love online. Although, according to my boyfriend (who was eventually sourced online) my travel blog also reads like an account of diabolical attempts to find love. Given that I am no longer adventuring around Europe (grim) and also not indulging in dating of any description (fabulous), I needed to find something else to write about. We do have upcoming trips (humble brag) to Japan and Vietnam that I desperately want to record for posterity, however it is certifiable to start blogging about those many months before the fact. Bread baking it is.
3. The kitchen! While I’m humble bragging/just bragging, I should note that last year I renovated my kitchen. It’s great. What that means is a two-fold situation – firstly, I now have a beautiful kitchen which is begging to be used and enjoyed and secondly, I no longer have a renovation to project manage, so I need to be distracted. Bread blog.
4. I am hoping that through this process I will learn how to take acceptable social media photos. Like baking bread with panache, my ability to produce quality Instagram images is kind of shite, and my desire to rectify this is high. It’s quite likely I will continue to disappoint myself and others here, but hopefully I can make progress?

So that’s the ‘logic’. One bready (only qualifier is that it must involve yeast) delight per week, accompanied by blathering and photographic evidence. For reasons of pride I hope they all turn out fantastically and I am a hero to all. For reasons of comedy I hope at least some of them are unmitigated disasters. For reasons of vindication I hope that my hours spent watching Great British Bake Off (and a scary number of guiltier pleasure baking shows) have taught me literally anything on the subject.