Brian baked some bread this week. He selected this recipe of Dan Lepard’s which has the beguiling title of ‘Easy White Bread’.
It made fantastic crunchy toast, topped with home made blackberry and apple jelly and Seville marmalade; plus the bonus of the first morning sunshine in two weeks. I could eat toast like this every day for a month. Who needs anything else?
Edit : Maybe a trip to the Marmalade Festival….
Zeb Bakes 
Great looking bread! I also made a Lepard recipe today, what a coincidence! Mine was a pita bread, though, very simple to make
I love that pita bread too! In fact I love all the simple bread recipes, they are the ones I return to over and over again! This one has a fantastic crunchy crust Sally :)
Yum! That looks delicious, especially with the jams!
Melty jelly on buttered toast – one of my favourite meals, thanks Abby!
Clever man! How nice that Brian bakes for you, Jo, you must have been feeling right spoilt! (And deservingly so.. :))
Celia, as he makes such good bread I am thinking of retiring… ;)
All looks great..with coffee in hand ..shared a wonderful looking breakfast with you!
Happy New Year Yvette! Hope it’s sunny where you are :)
You are making me very hungry.
I try ;)
Did somebody mention my favourite food: toast?
That’s a fantastic loaf, and glorious fruity pictures of your jams too.
I’ve been saving jars to make some marmalades for the World Marmalade Festival here in Feb.
The plan to do duck a l’orange Seville marmalade got the thumbs down from my husband. He’s probably right!
There’s something very satisfying about opening an 18 month old jar of jelly and finding it is still delicious! It’s not always the case, Gill!
I think I’ve seen a recipe somewhere for Seville Orange Duck – thinking about going to WMF. Here’s a link for anyone who is interested !
There is nothing finer then a simple meal of toast and jam. Great bread with great jam. You captured the lovely sun in your spoonfuls too Joanna. Could you taste it?
I was so happy to see the sun Brydie, you have no idea, so got a bit carried away with sunlight glinting on jam – I like to think I can taste it ;)
YummY! The only thing better than buttered toast is buttered toast and jelly ( or cheese! Warm melty cheese!)
Brian is a man of many talents! That bread looks wonderful!
Heidi, a friend sent a copy of this to her husband to encourage him bakewards – I think the sunshine was the essential ingredient. Did I mention he makes the marmalade too?
Brian,
Welcome into our, sometimes closed, little world of home bakers – by the looks of your bread, you’ve done this before – hope we’ll see more of your bread creations here.
I also took note of the fine quality of the jell of the blackberry/apple jelly – very nice! Years ago, when I first got into preserving, I thought jams and marmalades were challenging, but soon learned that making jellies is really where a preserver’s skill shows best – congrats on a fine creation.
But there is one remaining bit of the British breakfast that we Yanks still don’t quite understand – why is it that you guys like your toast done rock hard (and cold)?
The jelly was mine (takes small bow) and possibly the best one I have ever done… drip drip drip… I always make jelly when I have blackberries as I don’t like the pips!
As to Brian, he is a great baker when he decides to roll up his sleeves, I will tell him what you said. In fact I will copy your comment to him in an email. His bay and onion loaf is a treat (in the Handmade Loaf). As to the hot/cold toast thing. Well, I eat my toast hot with melted butter dripping through it. But… he likes it cooled (not cold as such) because he doesn’t like the melted butter and the toast going soggy…. can’t speak for anyone else. Anyone else care to comment?
you asked what more do you need ?…I hardly dare say this (it is so divisive) but what about marmite….good toast, nice cold butter and a fine scraping of marmite….can’t think of a better way to start the day/kickstart the mid morning/fill the lunch gap/for afternoon tea/snack before bed…any time really. The bread looks lovely so congrats to the master baker of the house
That’s rhetoric for you. Of course Marmite!! and that corner of cheese that winked at you when you opened the fridge door, and if you are Scandinavian that delcious cod roe paste that comes in a tube, I think of that as Scandinavian marmite actually and scrambled eggs and smoked salmon and crispy bacon and… and ….. (it was just the sunshine glowing through the blackberry jelly that made me want to take its pic)
What glorious, glowing jelly. I love the light of early morning sunshine (and late afternoon). I also love Seville orange marmalade but Sevilles are almost impossible to get in Queensland. That bread looks so good – my brother lives in America and I was puzzled by his comment that he didn’t like bread that had a crispy crust – it must be an American thing – no crunching please – I hadn’t known that. As a little Pomme i.e. before I left England, our toast was toasted on one side and not on the other – a bob each way so to speak.
PS: a marmalade fesitval! how fabulous is that. My husband would want to get a job as a judge.
Having just made the American version of ‘pain de mie’ aka sweet white square fluff bread, I think that Americans must have a very sweet tooth too, but then they eat pancakes covered in syrup for breakfast. National tastes differ, that’s one of the things that makes this bread project so interesting. You bake someone else’s recipe and gain insight. I try very hard not to adapt these recipes for that reason. I might not make them again, but first time out I do my best to stay as close to the original as possible. Of course many people think it’s a bit odd to bake something that you can see probably has too much sugar in it for your family’s taste to start with. But I ‘signed up’ to bake as many of the recipes from that book as I could comfortably manage and it’s going along ok for the time being. I think that people who take a recipe and change it overly sort of miss the point. I was fascinated by a post on Dan’s site where the writer said he was making Dan’s sourcream loaf and then proceded to make a loaf with no cream, wholemeal flour, not tin baked but handformed and said that was his version! I wondered if it was a joke at the time, but maybe it’s like those jazz riffs where the musician takes the first two notes of a standard and then whirls off into an extraordinary world of his own.
Jan – On the marmalade festival. Make some marmalade, send it in. Doesn’t have to be Seville, there are loads of other categories. It’s a world wide comp! Go on….
I agree with you about gaining insight to other cultures through their recipes, it’s fascinating. I was musing over my shop-bought bread slathered with good honey this morning that a Global Marmalade Festival would be a very interesting global peace and understanding excercise – oh, but then you’d get the issue of winners and losers and it could start the ‘Marmalade Wars’ – we’d be in our bunkers lobbing chunks of fluff bread loaded with chunky cut something or other, heehee.
Now I happen to know that you have been baking bread…you can’t fool me! And I want to hear all about it too. Marmalade wars, I’m sure they exist in the WI already.
I am going to be British and say it’s not the winning but the taking part that counts. On the odd occasion I have won something, I never feel that thrilled, guess I am just not that competitive, I like it when everyone wins! Nerd moment follows, for some reason the conversation makes me think of this:
The Doctor Dances – one of the genius episodes of Doctor Who, where Chris Eccleston says, ‘Just this once, Rose, everybody lives!’ Wouldn’t it be great if we had more days like that? And someone has kindly uploaded the scene to YouTube here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53CPuFgBK7E
Looks great! Coincidentally, in response to repeated requests, I’m planning a bread-baking class for some friends soon, and this is the bread we will make. In the meantime though, I made some plum jam the day before yesterday from the tree in our backyard…it just needs some toast to go with it :)
Great choice Jacqueline – Good Luck with the bread baking class! Love your posts on Mellow Bakers, hope to hear more from you soon x
This is really wonderful bread! I’ll have it with the homemade jelly and marmalade please! Joanna, you’re the best!!! You take incredible photos that makes everything looks so inviting and irresistible! I am dreaming of this great breakfast now!
You are very kind Arthur! I tweeted your lovely blog post with the insects scuplted out of vegetables yesterday – they are extraordinary :) If anyone else would like to see them click on arthur’s name above…
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