-BREAD,SCONESMUFFINSANDCAKES

In compiling this chapter I have been influenced by two schools ofthought: one maintains that since cakes (as opposed to bread) are unnecessary and unhealthy, they should not be included in a book of this kind; the other, more hedonistically (realistically?), argues that, as people are going to eat cakes anyway, they are betteroffmaking their own than buying them. I have therefore divided the recipes equally between the two: the first four recipes are useful and the rest indulgent. In describing the earlier items as useful I am not doing them justice, for few things are more delicious than wholemeal bread straight from the oven or a creamy polenta; the scones and muffins are useful in that they are cheap, very quick to make and either positively or relatively healthy (the scones contain cheese and the muffins less than half the usual proportion of fat and sugar in cakes). I have deliberately chosen items forthe second half which include nuts; beyond that, it is pointless to try to defend them on any grounds except taste.

-WHOLEMEAL BREAD-

Making bread does not entail much work but you need to allow time for the yeast to act; you also need a suitable place for the dough to rise. Yeast is a living organism which leavens thebread bygiving offcarbon dioxide during respiration. When it is activated it starts reprodUcing: the faster it reproduces, the quicker rising will be. To reproduce, it requires not only food and moisture, which the dough supplies, but a moderate degree of constant warmth. Too Iow a temperature will mean that the cells reproduce slowly or not at all, as when dough is frozen; sudden cold may kill them. Too high a temperature, as when the dough is finally baked in the oven, also kills them. It helps to avoid draughts during mixing and kneading, and also