James Ramsden - Every Last Crumb: From fresh loaf to final crust, recipes to make the most of your bread

HQ

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

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First published in Great Britain by HQ

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2022

Text Copyright James Ramsden 2022

Illustration Copyright Ellie Edwards

James Ramsden asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Hardback ISBN: 9781911663997

eBook ISBN: 9780008556570

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Version: 2022-06-30

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• Page numbers taken from the following print edition: ISBN 9781911663997

This isnt so much a book about baking as it is one about cooking and, above all, a book about eating.

Because, lovely as baking is, Im far more interested in what comes next; in the life of the loaf. Congratulations, you have baked or bought some bread: now what are you going to do with it?

Much like the rest of the country or so it seemed 2020s first nationwide lockdown rekindled a hitherto dormant interest in making bread in our house. Where previously wed knocked out the odd loaf perhaps once every few months, now we were baking every other day or two. There were mornings when Id set my alarm for silly oclock so that the dough Id been proving overnight could be baked and cooled in time for breakfast. We started discussing the behaviour and misbehaviour of our starter, levain and dough as if they were additional and even more time-consuming children than the two cabin-fevered lunatics we already shared a home with. There were arguments over whose turn it was to feed the starter.

If this all sounds like a mad hassle then you are in luck you dont have to do any of that to enjoy this book. You just need access to half-decent bread (though plenty of these recipes will sing well enough with sliced white), and an appetite for gluten. If baking is something youd like to explore, there are people far more qualified than I am to guide you through the occasionally torturous process of producing a good loaf of bread.

So, whether youre at the hydration-percentage-chatting, baking-obsessed end of the spectrum or are far happier mooching down to the shop to buy a loaf, here is a basketful of recipes to help you make the most of your bread.

The book is divided into chapters that arrange themselves roughly around how a loaf of bread develops and, inevitably, deteriorates, over the course of five days. This is far from set in stone. Loaves behave differently depending on a range of factors: the amount of salt they contain, the humidity of the kitchen, where and how theyre stored, the hydration of the loaf, and whether or not Mercury is in retrograde. All of these things (except perhaps the last!) will have a significant effect on how stale your loaf is on day two, day three, day five. So, consider the organization of the chapters to be a very loose guide and do bear in mind that if youre absolutely jonesing to make the meatloaf in loaf it will be fine.

But which bread? Its quite a broad church and Im more than wary of marauding into multiple culinary and cultural heffalump traps. This book is predominantly eurocentric and ultimately sourdough-ish in its attack. That is not because Im uninterested in other breads; I have dived head-first into my fair share of roti, mopped many acres of sauced plates with naan, fizzily chewed on sour injera, torn hunks of challah, and picked at paratha with as much love and glee as any bread thats the point of bread, isnt it? But unlike when it comes to eating bread, with recipe-writing I know my limits. And, as with baking, I am fully aware that there are many people more qualified than I am to expand on the big, beautiful world of bread.

So this is my small, domestic bread world, one that largely revolves around the handful of loaves I grew up with, and more specifically around the sourdough loaf that appears in our house every few days, whether by my own hand or someone elses. Sometimes I will offer a few suggestions for which breads might be appropriate but as with most things I say, consider these to be guidelines, not gospel.