Hello my lovelies!
Welcome to the mid-week Winsome Baker post! This is where I will chit-chat about what’s going on in the Winsome world and demonstrate that I’m a real person (awkward cough). Don’t worry, delicious recipes will keep coming on Sundays!
I’ve just started in on Junk-free June, which for me means finding a healthier home-made alternative. So I’ll be generally healthier this month along with sharing some great recipes for things that are good for you as well as delicious!
In other news, on the weekend I was hanging out with a couple of my best friends making bread. Bread is one of my favourite comforting, homestead-y look-at-me-I’m-self-sufficient things to bake. It smells so good and feels so satisfying to make. Luckily for me I have a couple of amazing friends who love to make food and DIY and other things that used to be for hippies and now are just plain hip. Or rad if you’re of a certain age… Did I really just write that?
My oldest friend Jenn is big into DIY and ferments (she makes all the things that I’m not allowed to make at home) and she also just moved into a house which has a wood burning fireplace that has an oven compartment. It has been crying out for us to do some experimenting in!
I’ve known Kerry almost as long as Jenn and she is amazing with preserves and healthy alternatives. She also has managed to keep a sourdough starter alive longer than the rest of us put together…
So we all prepared some doughs and rocked around to see what we could come up with. Kerry bought this beautiful wholemeal no-knead sourdough:
Which turned into this burnished beauty!
I proffered my Dan Leader 4 hour baguette dough, but made up as a boule to test out the lined banneton I got from ebay:
Which slumped a little on baking…
…but turned into a passable ciabatta style loaf..
We taught Jenn some excellent kneading technique: 
And then stuffed ourselves with bread, natch.
I’m hoping to expand this mid-week post with tips, links, news and other things I am generally excited about in the food world so watch this space!
Have a fabulous week my lovelies, I’ll see you on Sunday!
