Making Dough

Sometimes its the simple things in life that charm us.

This morning, for no particular reason, I decided to do something I've never done before and make my own bread. The new edition of Donna Hay's culinary magazine was mostly to blame. Her photographer makes the most basic of meals look fit for a king and soothing recipe titles such as "Simple Flat Bread" inspire us with the confidence that we too can achieve great things in the kitchen.

There were, of course, a few issues with the recipe but nothing I was sure I couldn't handle.

"Place milk and yeast mixture in a warm place ..." What warm place? It's the middle of winter! Perhaps under the heating duct.

"... for five minutes or until bubbles appear." Hmmm, maybe it isn't warm enough. Let's try the oven.

Ten minutes later I figure bubbles or no bubbles it must be ready.

"Knead dough for 5 minutes on lightly floured surface". Quite a relaxing thing to do, actually - kneading dough. Very calming. The recipe warned that the dough might become sticky in which case a further sprinkle of flour would be required. Actually quite a number of further sprinkes were required, leading to what I can only describe as a 'lightly floured kitchen'.

"Transfer dough to a bowl and cover with a teatowel for 30 minutes or until mixture has doubled in size". Now what exactly is doubled? After half an hour the mixture certainly looked bigger than it had been, but double? Well it had been half an hour so near enough.

"Bake for 15 - 20 minutes or until golden." Well which is it? 15 - 20 minutes or golden? It is painfully apparent that you can't have both. After 25 minutes my flat bread was a soft beige colour ... and no longer flat. Perhaps it hadn't quite doubled in the bowl after all.

The upshot of all this is that after half an hour in the oven I had what looked and tasted like a very large scone. Somewhat dissimilar to the photo in the recipe book - but nothing can be that bad if it's hot out of the oven and covered in butter. Breakfast!