Loaf day

When it's a frozen wasteland outside you can't beat a bit of baking for creating a warm comforting fug in the kitchen. After we got back from our grocery expedition to town yesterday the boyfriend had his first go at making something from the Bread Machine Bible* that I bought him for Christmas.



Amazingly we had nearly all the ingredients to make golden gingerbread. We didn't have quite enough plain flour and not nearly enough soft light brown sugar but substituting self-raising and light demerara didn't seem to hurt it.



I mostly acted in an advisory capacity, lining the loaf tin and stopping him from putting the lid back on the golden syrup until I'd wiped the edge of the tin clean.



Since we were baking the loaf in the over rather than in the bread machine we had to be a bit creative with the time and temperature settings (especially as we were trying to start making dinner at the same time). We initially gave it 60 minutes at 120 degrees C (mimicking the bread machine settings) but quickly realised it needed another 10 minutes at 150 and then another 10 at 190 before it was done.



Despite this it turned out absolutely splendidly, a perfect accompaniment to a cup of tea.

* both bible and fancy LOAF tin were bought from Lakeland in Reading.