Behind the blog

This is the Pot Kiln, a red-brick, wooden-floored embodiment of everything a rural English pub should be. It is the centre of the community, rooted in its West Berkshire surroundings; and the food served here is a succinct reflection of this. It is a place where locals turn up for a pint and hand over freshly caught brown trout, or earthy ceps in wicker baskets plucked from nearby secret locations. It is a place where the ale of choice, Brick Kiln, is brewed especially for us a mile down the road, and the venison around which the menu centres is stalked by the owner, Mr. Mike Robinson himself. It is a place where the chefs are to be found precariously stanced up apple and plum trees, making use of the latest glut from the well-established kitchen garden, if not scouring the hedgerows on blackberry duty.

It is also my new home, where I’ve begun life as a pastry chef. A year after graduating from Oxford, I have swapped a weighty obligatory bookshelf of Alexander Pope and Mary Wollstonecraft, in whose company I never felt quite at ease, for a scant selection of Dan Lepard and River Cottage. Cooking has always been a huge part of my life (at primary school I would beg the dinner lady for her quiche recipe), but this is my first foray into the daunting world of the professional kitchen. I am therefore relatively inexperienced, but like to reassure myself that enthusiasm counts almost as much as practice. One task I have been given sole charge of at the Pot Kiln is to keep the restaurant supplied daily with freshly baked bread. My brief is simple:  4 loaves of white, 4 loaves of brown, to be sitting proudly on the scarred oak bread board by midday, and the rest is left to me.

It is the task of assembling and baking this dough that my blog will focus on, as the combination of water, flour, salt and yeast, with its infinite potential and promise, captivated me long before I had paying customers to consider. It’s a running joke that my movements can be tracked by the trail of flour I leave in my wake, and before moving out I exacerbated my mum by filling our modest dining room with 25kg sacks of rye. I love that such humble beginnings, given time and care, will produce something sustaining and with a depth of flavour hard to conceive looking at the raw ingredients. No two loaves can ever be the same when made by hand, so each creation is unique. I hope that the recipes I share will be a reflection of my passion, and of how much I am learning along my journey.