BEN'S BREAD-MAKING CAREER

Ben took a 5-day course I gave at the beginning of February. Within a week he was out there selling his own breads. I'll let him tell his own story...

Oh my God! I'm turning into a bread. Well, there's so much I want to say to you all. Firstly, wasn't it such a great week, I would probably miss you all more, if it wasn't for the wonders of e-mail, all these tales of bargain scales and wot not, it feels like we've hardly left.

For my part, the last week has been dominated by bread. At the end of the course my local wood fired pizza place agreed I could use their oven, and an organic shop, that I could have a stand selling bread... and then my friend Sara lent me her cellar to use for preparations, and a bike and bike trailer to cart the stuff to the oven.

Well, in terms of the actual process and end product things have gone pretty well, but not without disasters, and panics. I left the salt out yesterday until the 3rd knead, buggerations, it took ages to work it all back in, and I'm still praying there aren't people at home spitting out lumps of doughy salt.

In technical terms, I bought a pair of electric scales from a local kitchenware store near my folks in Suffolk, I wouldn't recommend them as they have a fault, the zero doesn't show immediately, it takes about 15 mins for them to warm up (a few oo ers there I bet), but pressing down a bit on the edge means i can see it. Anyway, I bought bannetons from a company called Candi Gifts in Lowestoft as I didn't have time for the Germans to deliver. I've actually got plastic ones for the long thin bread, but they don't work very well, you have to put loads of flour in, which isn't great for the oven I've actually adapted my technique in the wood oven to using tins, so the bread goes into the tin just before going in the oven, I let it harden up, and then flip it onto the stone when it's tough, but obviously only 2 days in, there's loads of time to try and change things.

I'm selling the sourdough and the white with overnight sponge, but customer feedback suggests a rye bread, spelt and wholemeal would probably be great hit. I'm going to try my loaves down near Columbia road market tomorrow although I haven't figured out how I will be able to park and transport my goods, but I'm sure I'll come up with something. I'm not sure this is going to be viable financially, but will continue to give it a shot. I was charging £3.25 for a big one - about 800g and £2.25 for a small one 500g, but it's taking all hours of the day at the mo. My mum suggested I sell bread and butter puddings as well which I thought was a pretty good idea.

Thanks so much for the encouragement guys! Much appreciated!! Incidentally the bread tastes really good, so that's a result. Oh yes, I've bought my flour from Marriages in Chelmsford, I'm using their organic at the mo which they're doing at £10 per 16K sack. But having found out the flour in it comes from 16 different countries I don't think I'll stay with that. Actually if I keep doing this I'd like to source from the small places.

Happy baking,

Ben