Bread Recipes

Attempting to bake bread on a narrowboat

Note! To everyone saying I needed to add sugar, I’m pretty sure I did but because it caused no drama it either got edited out or was in one of the speeded-up bits!

After a surprising number of requests from viewers in my Lockdown vlog for me to film a bread-making video, I decided to retrieve such footage from my archives of when I first attempted the process about a year or so ago. There’s no quality to this production at all because it was never really intended for wide distribution but so many folk said “just upload anything” that I have. So it’s your own fault, really.

Please read the video description. Please, I implore you.
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Theme music: “Vespers” by Topher Mohr and Alex Alena, from the YouTube music library

Original of the video here

Pancakes Recipes
Waffles Recipes
Pies Recipes
Cookies Recipes
Bread Recipes

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Video Transcription

hello and welcome to what is verydefinitely not a vlog in my lockdownvideo I had a surprising number ofpeople in the comments saying pleaseplease do a video of you making breadnow I’m a little bit reluctant because alot of other narrowboat channels andindeed non narrowboat channels in thislockdown time are doing a lot of cookeryvideos and i do not want this channel toturn into a cookery channel not leastbecause i don’t cook and have no ideawhat i’m doing but I just want to steera little bit away from that but I didhave loads of people saying would you doa bread making video so what I’ve doneis I’ve gone back from my old footageand about a year ago I filmed myselfwhen I made bread for the very firsttime it was never intended to see thelight of day particularly this film butI just shot it as a curiosity really andit’s not high production values at allyou know I’m gonna keep making excusesfor this but I’ve had people sayingDavid upload anything uploaded we’rebored here own upload any old tat anyold tat you’ve asked for any old tat Ican provide be careful what you wish forso here it is me making bread apologiesif the sound on this is a little distantthe camera is over there for reasonsthat should become apparent fairly soonI am over here and I don’t have my radiomicrophone with me so I shall have toshout and project and become atheatrical person to do this video foryou as you know I don’t do cooking but Ihave decided for reasons that slightlyescape me then I should like to have ago at making some bread as you can see Ihave ingredients 1 which is flour flourwill go everywhere hence the camerabeing at a fair distance above all I gotbread flour I’ve got salt got yeast gotbutter got a measuring ball and I’venever done breadbefore I had to go with a bread makingmachine once and it wasn’t terriblysuccessful but I’ve never actually triedit manuallyso who knows how this will turn outanyway I thought I’d share it with youit’s certainly not gonna be worthy of avlog I don’t think but a little bit ofthe behind-the-scenes boating that somepeople sometimes ask me for now theinstructions on this are absolutely tinyso I’m going to have to squint at themright get your ingredients together I’vegot those mix the flour yes yeast yessugar no and salt yes in a big bowl ofthat using your fingertips rubbing thebutter until only fine crumbs are leftmixing the water with a cutlery knifewell the kind of knife is there I’m allknives cutlery yeah anyway I needweighing scales or something don’t know500 grams of flour I’m gonna need scaleshang on possibly another Bowl for theway of things right hang on what’s righthow much flour 500 grams you can’t seethis but the local duck army has spottedme at the window and as I do feed themin the mornings they are all justswimming around here hoping I’m gonnathrow them some more food they’ve hadtheir food this morning oh I have afeeling he’s gonna make a mess I have noidea why I bought such a massive amountof flour that is what I think it’s 1.5kilograms three kilograms of flour I’vegot here that’s ridiculouslike 500 grams flipping things turneditself offbasically mix it all in big ball so Ican now D can lane that measure outseven grams of easy-bake yeast easy-bakeyeast it’s not going to be easy I thinkwe know that they can call it easy allthey like eight blasts near enough umright that goes in there as well isn’titmix the flour yeast sugar and salt rightI don’t have I don’t have sugar one anda half teaspoons of saltoh I’ve got a measuring thing half asalt I’ve got some other salt FD whichI’ll use up first so far this is goingwell now I need the final ingredient wasone tablespoon of soft butter well I’vegot spreadable butter which is partbutter and part vegetable oil then youburn up this model I’ve also got someactual butter but I wouldn’t call itsoft however if I do a bit of this itmight soften up I suppose but what 1tablespoon actually meat why couldn’tthey’ve given me a measurement in gramsor something 1 tablespoon soft butterI’ve got that but is that a tablespoonand official tables not just a spoon anofficial tablespoon who knows this iswhy I find cooking so irritating becauseyou need so much gear for all themeasuring and the mixing and air I meanyou have to spend a fortune before youcan actually do anything or you justhave to kind of guess and I don’t likeguessing I like I’ll warm this up for abit talk talk amongst yourself for asecond know I’m supposed to have somewater half a pint of hand warm waterthat’s half a pint and that water isthat boat temperature which is sort ofwarmish the drawer is stuck okay I’mgonna call that a tablespoon of butterlightly grease the mixing bowl with someoil Oh suddenly they mentioned oil theydidn’t mention name the ingredientslightly grease the mixing bowl with someoilwhat sort of oil yeahput the dough back in comfortable andclean deed a clean tea towel as if I’vegot a clean tea towel huh leave to risetill doubled in size leave for an hourokay mix all this up basically start bymixing this all upwhile the butter seems to have alreadyvanished although I’m not sure it can’thave done but I can’t find it anymorebecause it’s broken up into such smallpieces actually flour and the salt andthe yeast will be getting a good mixingrubbing the butter until only finecrumbs are left one I don’t really knowwhat they mean by fine crumbs I’ve justgot flour in here I can’t feel thebutter at all it’s not veryself-explanatory there are no crumbs ofbutter really only supposed to put 1tablespoon soft butter now that’s whatI’ve done mix in the water with a knifemix water with a knife again then whatwhat all right I’m gonna mix the waterin with a knife the mixture is gettingsticky I believe this is supposed tohappenthere is annoyingly a fair bit ofmixture that is just dry at the bottomI’m not sure that’s supposed to happenright mixing the butter tip on tolightly flour dusted service and kneadfor 10 minutes or or use the dough hookattachment on your mixer nope I do nothave such a thingwell I’ve sort of mixed it in I’m notconvinced about this there’s a lot offlour at the bottom that hasn’t mixed inin any way shape or form I’m going totake an executive decision and add adrip more water because there’s all thisflour and stuff at the bottom that isn’tmixed in this why wouldn’t you mix mixyou Baga it’s wrong with youmix in them right where’s theinstructions again a lightly floureddusted surface knead for 10 minuteslightly grease the mixing bowl with oilput the dough back in right okay flourthen lightly floured surface I did cleanthe worktop before I started I shouldpoint out enough flour is that lightlyfloured the hell does lightly flouredmean anywayright what do I dotip onto the lightly flour dustedservice knead for 10 minutes yes righttip okay should I wipe the bowl out whatdo you think before I put the oil inthere probably I’ve got some vegetableoil I’m gonna have to use that I’ll takethat as that’s good right knead this for10 minutes this will be the lessinteresting portion of the video which Iwill probably first wind through tenminutes of this is going to kill me theydon’t tell you what the point of this onis no idea why you need it really howyou need itI really would be a lot easier to justgo down the test house and pilo forbread for a quid lightly Rees the mixingbowl with some oil put the dough back incover with TT oil lightly grease put theday back in cover the ball with a cleardetail leave to rise till doubled insizeoh that’s in there clean tea towelmy cover with clean tea towel leave torise till double the size about our itis now half past midday gonna need a nutsit down after all this one hour haspassed this is normally the time where Itake the covers off whatever I’ve beenleaving and find it’s exactly the sameas it was when I put it in there but letus find out it has been proving for anhouroh oh oh my word oh yes that is biggerthan it wasthat’s it that’s easily doubled asideit’s working I tell you it’s working I’mactually I’m actually shocked well I’mgonna take a photo of thatcuz that’s crikey now there are furtherinstructions on the thing it says knockback the dough by gently kneading justfive times to get the air out mold intoa smooth oval and lift into a lightlyoil tin I don’t have a tin to do thiswith I simply have a tray so I’m gonnahave to do a sort of whatever shape itgrows low for then now I’m looking atthe amount there it’s gonna over spillthis massively this is gonna be amonster and what God okay right okayright so I need to I need to give it alittle bit of a little bit of a how do Iget this out just just pop it out letsuppose what that a bit soggy on thebottom there hope that’s not a problemright this is supposed to be a littlelightly oiled although it is a non-sliptray so I don’t know if it needs it butwe’ll do it anyway a little bit of lightoilingneed five times I do like to reread theinstruction several times over just tomake sure I know I’m doing knock backthe dough knead it five times to get theair out more into small overall sort ofthat shape put into like the oil tin andthen cover again with a tea towelclean-ish tea towel and leave to proveuntil doubled in size again right that’sfive right let’s shape it into somethingvaguely resembling a loaf pop it intothe tray cover with the cloth that’sgoing to double in size that’s gonnaneed a little bit of them a little bitof slack on it in there there we goright there it’s now half past half pastone give it another hour and I willcheck back with you lateranother hour has gone by hand justlooking at this under the tea towel Ican see it’s been having another decentrising session and Ohoh my you can really smell that sort ofyeasty smellwell the oven is on I’ve had that on forabout 10 minutes heating up to gas mark6 I don’t know what that is incentigrade it see if the things that 200centigrade a hundred and eighty in a fanoven or gas mark 6 now I have a sneakingsuspicion that the oven on the boat heredoesn’t actually respond to thetemperature controlled at all because Itry putting something in on a three theother day which should have been low andit came out absolutely cremated so Ithink the temperature sensor doesn’twork and it just blasts out full heat soit’s probably even now actually onsomething like a seven or eight insteadof the six it needs but we will find outthat’s an hour let’s unwrap this littlepackage of delights what let me bringthat close look at the size of that youknow that film the comedy sci-fi filmevolution with David Duchovny where thestuff just keeps growingthis yolks whoa what do we do we we’vedone that dagger that doubled in sizeagain yes I’d say sopre-heat your oven lift the tin into themiddle of ins shelf bake for 30 to 35minutes all right I’ll just stick it inthe oven that way round I supposeset your watches it is half past twoback in half an hour half an hour in theoven can’t really smell it but there’sdefinite into bread smell it looksterrific the instructions said 30 to 35minutes it had 31 I’m very anxious abouttaking it outI did try making a cake before andbecause the oven only does full blastthat was the thing that needed the lowtemperature it just crisped totally onthe outside and was entirely uncooked onthe inside this does at least want hightemperatures so I’m I’m I’m hopeful nowthe the instructions on the tin say takeit out and tap it tap it on the base ofthe loaf and check if it sounds Hollowalthough what you’re supposed to do ifit doesn’t sound hollow I’m not entirelysure presumably put it back in a bitlonger yeah oh it says to cool it on awire rack I have one of those hang onwire rack[Music]okay all right here we goholy moly mother of burnt that’s thegood side that’s the burnt side I thinkwe can safely say it’s coming out ahwell I’m a little disappointed if I’mhonest because he did only have 32minutes and the instructions said 30 to35 so it’s not like I left it in therefor hours but that he’s very very burnednow if you turn it around to the otherside this is where the back of the oventhe the glass door was see that lookedbetter even possibly not cooked on thebottom I’m beginning to think that thisis not a good oven the cake was ruinedand obviously where the bread was nearthe flame which is at the back of theoven it’s completely overdone it youknow at least it’s not stuck to the trayright let’s let’s try that try thattapping thingimagine about holo it’s hard to tellreallyI’m thinking it not cooked on the bottombut as we know is very well cooked onthe top I’m going to let it cool andwe’ll have to see when I cut it openwhat it’s like it’s now a little whilelater and the loaf has cooled down and Ihave cut it into pieces and I have trieda slice and you know what apart from thelittle bit of burnt crust the rest of itis alright here’s what it looks likeinside it’s all soft and squidgy andactually not bad doesn’t really tastevery much you know how sometimes you eata piece of bread you think that’s niceand breadyit’s not it’s a bit a bit bland needssomething else in it and I don’t meanthrowing walnuts in it or I’m not a fanof breads that have things in them breadto me should be plain and then you addstuff to that afterwards but anywaybeside the point it kind of worked so aninteresting experiment to be perfectlyhonest I’ll probably just keep goingdown to Tesco’s for me bread[Music]you

16 Replies to “Attempting to bake bread on a narrowboat

  1. DAVID; I WATCHED YOUR BREAD COOKING VLOV TODAY 4-19-20 LOVED IT MAYBE THE BEST YET, BUT I THINK YOU USED THE BROILER TO COOK WHEN YOU SHOULD HAVE USED THE OVEN ??? THE BROILER ISN’T TEMP CONTROLLED WHEREAS THE ” OVEN IS TEMP CONTROLLED, OVERALL VERY!!! VERY !!! GOOD

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  5. Pmsl! You are having a Victor Meldrew moment in that kitchen my lovely you are so funny and I love your humour. You cheered me up xxx huge hugs and stay safe

  6. I do enjoy how you go: Fast then s l o w, fast, s l o w. Did you learn this in journalism school?

  7. Oh this was a nice distraction, you poor darling thing. I see now why you don’t cook. Its like a foreign language for you, but very entertaining to watch. Please up load any old thing for us to watch. Please. I might be begging. There is no emoge to convey real desperation.

  8. I know nothing about nothing, but normally the top section is the oven, and the bottom area is the broiler with a gas oven. If this is true it explains why you are burning the top of things.

  9. David, you did excellent considering the handicaps you had. A better stove would help. Thanks for the video…. Cheers

  10. Very humourous, my wife couldn’t stop laughing, the sped up ducks patrolling in anticipation outside added to the humour

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