My bumpy ride on learning how to bake the perfect bread…..

As my dreams of opening a café were quietly bubbling away in the background, I had one of those moment of truth thoughts. What is a café without sandwiches and what are sandwiches without good bread? Exactly. So off I marched into the world of bread baking.

Now, yes, I could bake cakes. Cakes and I were already on friendly terms. But bread… bread felt like a whole new game. My only previous experience was with a bread machine which, I must admit, I’ve fallen out of love with. Everything comes out the same square shape and tastes like… well, machine bread. I wanted rustic. I wanted personality. I wanted the sort of bread that looks like it has a story to tell before you even slice it.

Naturally, I looked at courses and immediately discovered that learning to bake professionally can cost an arm, leg, and possibly a rolling pin. Which is maybe why I have no formal baking training to this day. Then I stumbled across a blogger called Maria who taught bread baking from her own home and I thought, right, that’s more like it!

But because patience has never been my strongest quality, I also bought a stack of bread books and started experimenting before my first lesson. I was bored to tears of my basic bread machine loaf, so I dove straight into a Hungarian potato bread recipe. It sounded amazing… and turned out to be so messy. The dough was sticky beyond belief, so I kept adding flour, which did absolutely nothing except annoy both me and the kitchen counter.

To make matters worse, I started this adventure in the evening, completely unaware that it would take four hours. I naively thought I could leave the dough to rise overnight, but the book sternly warned me that it could over-rise after two hours. So there I was, trapped in a late-night bread drama, setting alarms so I could wake up for the next step in the baking cycle.

And because old habits die hard, I tasted the dough. Yes, raw dough. Yes, I know. I’ve done it with cake batter and lived to tell the tale, so I thought… why not? Well. Let’s just say I paid for that decision. Forget warnings about eating warm bread — raw bread dough is a whole new level of regret.

Eventually, I did get a loaf out of it. The crust was ridiculously thick and slightly burnt, but honestly, for a first try, I was quite proud. No one can judge a bumpy beginning. And I refuse to give away the recipe until I can make it with confidence instead of chaos.

What I can share is the sandwich I made the next day with that very bread. I enjoyed it so much I completely forgot about my usual soup on the side. If that’s not a win, I don’t know what is.

PARMA HAM, FIG & MOZZARELLA SANDWICH

• small bunch rocket salad
• 3 ripe figs (cut in quarters)
• 175g mozzarella cheese (thorn into pieces)
• 3 slices Parma ham (thorn into smaller pieces)
• 1tbsp honey
• 1tbsp lemon juice
• fresh ground black pepper
• butter for spreading
• 4-6 bread slices (or more, it all depends on how much of sandwich filler you put on one slice)

1. Combine all the ingredients except the bread and butter
2. Butter the bread slices (very important as butter stops sandwich from becoming soggy)
3. Apply Sandwich filler!

The end 😉
Rasa