Ok, hands up, who has been baking since the lockdown started?
Personally, I haven't been totally consistent on this, we have some incredibly good bakers getting into their stride around here, and many are managing to operate despite the Covid conditions, and I'm both supportive and appreciative of them. But I do love the grounded feeling I always have when I'm making my own bread. For choice i would always always use a wholewheat flour- preferably stoneground and organic. Very near my norfolk home, in a village called Letheringsett, there's an old water mill which has been beautifully restored- in normal conditions, it's often open for visits, and also shopping for great quality flours of all sorts. When the wheel is turning, propelled by the flow of water from the river Glaven, the whole building rocks, and the feeling of simple power is very thrilling.
I've been using some dubious flour, it's slightly past its sell by date - that's my excuse for the fairly - ahem- dense loaves so far. But no matter whether the bread sulks and stays low, or springs airily upward- it's always going to make the BEST toast.
So breakfast, for which we have abundant time at the moment, always consists of coffee and toast. Sometimes one of us will make slow cooked tomatoes which are delicious on toast. Now and then we have a couple of slices of bacon. An alternative addition ( a regrettably fattening treat) is peanut butter, currently with black currant jelly. But the trusty accompaniments to heavenly brown toast are always marmalade, or marmite.
