is filling my house! Before Etsy, I used to bake bread when we needed it but these days I don't get the time. So Sunday is baking day - today I made 6 loaves of bread (3 wholemeal, 1 rye, 1 buckwheat and 1 white) and added a cake since the oven was on anyway. The kitchen smells delicious and this evening I can stuff the freezer with bread for the week.
I read somewhere that baking bread is an exact science, that everything needs to be weighed and measured and temperature controlled and blahblahblah. I am an inexact cook. I hardly ever follow recipes and cook by instinct and I rebel against such strict instructions! I measure with American cups, much quicker and more relaxed, and even then it's very roughly gauged. And I get great results. I use my old Kenwood Chef with a dough hook (it's older than me, being a wedding present to my parents), whatever tin I have to hand and all kinds of flours and I thoroughly enjoy myself. And the children love watching the yeast bubble up. And it tastes soooooo good!
Yesterday was the village carnival and we had the best day! We joined in on the Under Fives float (which won best in junior section and best overall!) with Herbert Buggles as Tigger and The Girl Wonder as a Disney princess. The carnival theme was adverts and our float was the Disneyland Paris advert. For a small village, we have a mighty fine carnival, one of the largest in Cambridgeshire. Lots of fabulous floats from the village groups and associations. The entertainment was good too, with a marching band, majorettes and a group of modern morris dancers (I think that's what they were!) who looked incredible and had me rolling on the floor when they explained that a particular dance was called The Last Hot Dog Stand in Yaxley! Their costumes have me desperate to make something in black and white.
