The Cottage Bread Book

A Word Before We Begin

There is a moment, just before a loaf is pulled from the oven, when the whole house seems to hold its breath — the windows a little steamed, the dog lifted from his sleep by something ancient and good, the children drifting in from wherever children drift to, drawn by a smell that no candle-maker has ever quite managed to bottle. I have been baking bread for more than sixty years now, in kitchens small and draughty and beloved, and I can tell you with some confidence that it never loses its power, that quiet alchemy of flour and water and time. This book is not a grand or complicated thing. It is simply a collection of the loaves and buns and flatbreads I have made again and again — on grey Tuesday mornings when the range wanted lighting and on golden Saturdays when the windows stood open and the yeast rose as though it too were glad to be alive. There are no tricks here, no fashions, no ingredients that require a telephone and a courier. Only honest recipes, the sort that reward patience and forgive imperfection, written down as plainly and faithfully as I know how, in the hope that your kitchen might know the same warmth mine has always known.

— Agnes