Is there anything better in life than bread? Seriously. From a warm crumpet lathered in butter and marmite on a rainy Sunday in bed, to the millennial’s go-to brunch option of avocado and poached eggs on toast, bread is the equivalent of a really good, comforting hug. But at a time where hugs have been replaced by elbow bumps for the foreseeable future, bread has never tasted more wholesome.
Consuming bread has always been high on the British agenda. We are a nation that invented the scone (a highly underrated type of bread if you ask us) and toast is our equivalent of the French eating croissants everyday for breakfast. Basically, it’s our diet staple.
Aside from eating it, we oddly enjoy watching other people make and eat bread too. Case in point: bread week on The Great British Bake Off. Sure, biscuit week and pastry week are great, but it’s bread week that has racing to the TV to watch it in real time – and taking pitta, bagels and baguettes with us for snacks.
However, it was during lockdown that our love affair with dough reached sticky new heights. In an unexpected turn of events, we became a nation of star bakers. Initially banana bread ascended to Instagram fame with a myriad of chocolatey (yes), nutty (no) variations taking to the grid, but it wasn’t long before homemade sourdough became the bake du jour of long lockdown days.
The arrival of our new culinary skills has simultaneously marked the end of our long term relationship with Gail’s incredible (and incredibly expensive) artisan sourdough. With a few extra pennies in the bank each week, why not invest in your new bread baking hobby? From Morphy Richards Fastbakethat’ll ready your dough in under an hour, to Sage’s custom loaf machine with 60 settings, treat yourself to a bread maker that will take your loaf to the next level.
But what to buy? There are SO MANY options out there and as a recent graduate from the lockdown school of bread making, it can be a minefield knowing what to invest in, particularly because these techy gadgets don’t often come cheap.