Covid19 pandemic hit in March and we, in Hungary, was not sure about its full impact, effects, transmissions, well basically everything. One of the things which worried us was Bread. Most bread sold in Hungary is open; the bread is baked on site and left unwrapped until someone picked it up. We felt uncomfortable with this as you couldn't really tell what the history or encounters have been with the bread.

We made an instant decision to bake our own bread at home. Hungary has a strong home-bake community so there were no flour, yeast shortages so we are able to get wide varieties of different flours. It's been great experimenting with different brown breads flour and seeing what we can make.

So here is my experience of baking bread.

1. Use a food processor with a dough hook. This mixes bread better than hand, you can leave to do the work for ten mins whilst refereeing children
2. Always use a pizza stone, the thermal hit is amazing for loaves structures
3. Don't bake indoors when the temperature is greater than 30C. I've a Weber grill and you can baking bread on the stone. The grill is hotter than most ovens so you need to move the bread to a rack to ensure the bottom doesn't burn too much
4. Its ok to make a big batch and keep the dough in fridge/freezer
5. Bake what you need, real bread goes off/hard/mouldy much quicker than you
6. Prick pizza bases to stop bubbles
7. Follow a recipe until you know when things look right... dough should come together in a ball in the food processor... it can be sticky or dry...
8. Bread is forgiving

So far, I've managed to cook, intentionally and without a recipe,

1. Loaves
2. Flat bread
3. Pitta
4. Pizza (add oil)
5. Ciabatta (pizza flour, brown flour)
6. Breadrolls (add milk/butter)
7. Carroty bagels - inspired by Bing (the Tv show) - Add grated carrot, less water and boil for a minute in honey water before baking
8. Sweet bread with raisins/cinnamon