Bread and Butter

On one of our days out while camping in West Sussex we visited the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum.

It's a fantastic place, full of buildings that have been rescued and painstakingly taken apart and rebuilt at the museum.




One of the buildings is a working water mill and Euan brought some flour ground by the mill......

and decided he wanted to make bread with the flour.

At another of the houses someone had been making butter, which he was very interested in, so while we were walking through the woods on our way back to the car park it was decided to try and make some butter to go with the bread when we got home.

I found a recipe for a really simple loaf called a Grant Loaf:

700g stoneground wholemeal bread flour
1 teaspoon of salt
7g sachet of easy-blend dried yeast
1 tablespoon of Honey
600ml Tepid water
and a 2lb loaf tin greased with butter.

It's very easy and very tasty.

Mix the flour, salt and yeast with your hands.


Add the honey and water and mix it up with your hands, after about a couple of minutes the dough should start to become slippery and elastic and leave the sides of the bowl.

Put the dough into your tin and smooth the top.

Cover with a damp clean tea towel for about 30 mins until it's risen to about 1cm from the top of your tin. Pre-heat your oven to 200c (400f) gas 6 while it's rising.

Bake your loaf for about 35-40mins, remove the loaf from the tin and tap the bottom, if it sounds hollow then it's cooked, if it makes a thump then put it back for another 5 mins.


Making butter took a bit longer. I found a great explanation of how to make butter.

We could have made it by hand but we (I) decided to do it in the food processor.

Basically the cream is whipped up until it separates. (It was at this point that enthusiasm wained and I was left to carry on by myself)

It's then washed in water.

Then mashed to remove more water. It's really easy to make, to see more detailed and illustrated instructions check out this site.

And there you go, home made bread and butter, plus a homegrown cucumber, it's just like the 'Good Life'.

That's me, the one with the glasses!