Home-made

... pains aux raisins, fresh from the oven. I have been well and truly bitten by the baking bug! My sourdough starter is currently on a diet as it hasn't been behaving itself. So I'm feeding it daily and not using it in the hope that it will regain some vim and vigour.

Meanwhile I'm trying recipes from Paul Hollywood's How to Bake, using conventional yeast. This is the result of my first go at his Danish pastry dough. They aren't quite as shapely as his, but I'm blaming it on the fact that I don't have a machine to knead the soft, sticky dough and have to do it by hand. Anyway, they smell delicious, and they look at least as good as our local baker's :) I did half with raisins and half with dried apricots, and put some uncooked ones in the freezer for quick breakfasts (defrost and prove overnight, stick in the oven in the morning). I love this book so far, it's inspiring.