Today's bread bake is a simple wholemeal loaf - Wednesday morning's always a good time for this as Mrs. F. is out singing with her local Rock Choir and I have the kitchen to myself.

So...

3.3lb of stone-ground, wholemeal flour from the Lurgashall watermill, to which I've added 2 level tsp salt, 1oz dried yeast, 2 level tsp caster sugar and 2 oz of butter - mixed well and kneaded for 10 minutes into a dough with 1000ml of warm water.

It's just rising in the airing cupboard for around 40 minutes as I write this. When it comes back down into the kitchen, 5 minutes more kneading will get done, and then I'm going to cut it into loaf sizes and put them into greased bread tins to prove for 20 minutes. Half an hour or so in the middle of the oven at 250 should get me some nice loaves.

I'm tempted to mark each one with a big "M" for Mudcat!