Not Another Recipe - Bread Making: HartStyle

We purchased a book on clearance a few years ago from one of our fa-vo-rite kinds of stores: Used Bookstore.

For real, used bookstores are like a pirate’s treasure trove to me. I love the smell, the lighting, the owners and the workers. I love the vast array of someone else’s stories all over the shelves. Used books are cool, for one reason, because they tell two stories: One, what the original author had intended. Two, the story of previous owners with underlines, dog-eared pages, tear stains, and sometimes food stains if you can get your hands on a well-loved cookbook.

Speaking of the well-loved cookbook. My Love and I could spend hours and hours perusing the shelves of just about any used bookstore. Generally, we find ourselves right back, smack in the cookbook section for a significant portion of time. Mosty, we converse like this: “oooh, ahhh, oh check this one out…” but we don't purchase unless it’s a “must have”. And, by “must have,” I mean, we usually “must have” at least one book upon each trip to a used bookstore. Hence, many, many a bookshelf in our home looks like this:

and this: 

Time to Rein It In and get to my point:

We purchased the book 100 Great Breads by Paul Hollywood a few years ago. And, just a few weeks ago I opened it up to see what I could do – I made  a wonderful Brie Brioche. It was gooo-oood!  I have some things to learn, but I’m quite proud of my first try! So, this week, my love decided to try his hand at breadmaking. He began with the first recipe: White Bread. Oh. My. Goodness. I could eat that bread for breakfast, lunch, and dinner … second breakfast, elevenses, tea time, snack time, whatever: It. Was. Good.

Then, he made the second recipe in the book: Crusty Cob. It’s early, I’m waiting for the coffee to finish brewing and my honey to wake up before I bust into it … today (we’ll talk about yesterday in another post). This bread: less olive oil, more butter. So Good.

These recipes will become basics to us. We’re gonna learn ‘em. You know, like really learn ‘em. Like, we won’t need to carry around a book forever because these recipes will be so, um, learned. ...Can you tell I’m really looking forward to bread number three?:: Batch Bread, which is described as “A very old British recipe, mainly baked during the eighteenth century, when white flour was prevalent. This sweet white loaf was favored by the ‘upper crust’ of the country!”

Please sir, may I have some more?!!!?!!!

-GH