Cocktails and baking

First things first: the most important recipe for this week was clearly tonight's Vodka Gimlets. Yummy. I'm coming over all Mad Men! Shame we didn't have Martini glasses - clearly something for the shopping list.



I don't know what's got into me lately, but I'm really enjoying trying out new bread methods. The freezer's now completely chock full of bready things, so I must stop baking. Afterall, I have enough in store to last me many many weeks!

Having made Bialys the other week, I used up some of the yeast I had leftover from last weekend's baking-fest to try out bagels. Dan Lepard's column in The Guardian gave me the recipes for bagels and bialys. I also tried out the Light Rye Flatbread from his book The Handmade Loaf (bought on impulse when browsing in Foyles last week).



So the verdict? Well clearly I need to make larger holes in my bagels next time! But other than that they were lovely and chewy on the inside with a good crunchy crust. The flatbreads were well-flavoured from the rye flour, and good with soup or houmous.



Flushed with the success of my first bagel batch I tried a second lot - this time my favourite cinnamon and raisin flavour. I should have checked how much white flour I had left! I ended up using 2/3 white to 1/3 wholemeal, which worked out OK, but they didn't have quite that same chewy texture. White flour's clearly the way to go in future. But, as you can see, I did do better on the holes.