Christmas cooking and some bread

I thought since I had gone to the trouble of taking the photographs, I would show you my Christmas cooking for this year.

I made my normal twelve mince pies for the freezer. And as there was pastry and mincemeat over I made a mincemeat tart to be cooked and eaten straight away. I also made a Stollen, just one of a moderate size this year, but as I was feeling ill by the time I cooked it, I took it out of the oven and left it on the side without brushing it with melted butted and sprinkling it with icing sugar.

I left that for my son to do later. He sent me a photograph in hospital and said “I might have used too much sugar, blame bbc good food.” 

However it was declared to be “Yummy” when he got round to eating some, so I was relieved as I wasn’t sure if it would be okay, having struggled with making it.

And today I made some bread.

Recently on “The Chase” there was a question about the “Chorleywood Process”. Being interested since it is a station on the way to Aylesbury, where my daughter lives, if you come from London. I looked up the details and found a description of the change in the breadmaking process that started in 1961 and is now the method used for most commercially prepared bread. I decided that accounted for the fact that I really find it hard to stomach shop bread.

Hence I decided not to buy some bread but make a loaf of wholemeal ‘Artisan’ bread, as I had before, though this time I just left the shaped loaf for thirty minutes while the pot heated up and it came out fine.