The Bloomer That Would Not Stop Rising

 Right then, Saturday. Let me tell you about Saturday, because it started off perfectly ordinary and ended with a loaf of bread that looked like it was trying to escape my kitchen.

I was up early, before the sun had properly made its mind up, and Sara was already pottering about downstairs. We had a cup of tea and one of those lovely rambling conversations you only have at half six in the morning, about nothing and everything all at once. The garden came into it, as it always does. What needed watering, what was fruiting, what Sam and Iris had said about the winter beds this time. And somewhere in amongst all that, Sara asked what I was baking for the week. Now, in our house that's not a small question. Bread isn't just bread here, it's practically a household appointment. So we settled on cobs, plenty of them, and a bloomer for good measure, and off I went to the allotments with that plan quietly baking away in the back of my mind before I'd even touched a bit of flour.

Sam was at work and Iris, bless her, was still fast asleep, which meant it was just me up the plot on my own this morning. There's something rather nice about that, if I'm honest. No one nattering at me, no one asking where the secateurs have gone, just me, the watering can, and the quiet. With this weather we've been having, watering isn't optional, it's practically a religious duty, so I went round both plots giving everything a good soak while the morning was still cool enough to do it justice. Peaceful stuff. Good thinking time. I decided the bloomer needed to be a proper one this week, none of your half-hearted efforts.

Back home, and this is where the day picked up a bit, because one of our older girls turned up with two of the grandchildren in tow.

So there I was, kitchen full of family, flour on the worktop, and a genuine sense of purpose about the baking. I got stuck into the cobs first. Thirty six of them, if you can believe it. I don't know why I do things by halves in this house, we never have just enough of anything, it's either none or a small mountain. But they came out of the oven exactly as they should, golden and proper and sounding hollow when you tap the bottom, which is the only real test that matters. The grandchildren were very taken with the process, mostly the bit where flour goes everywhere and nobody tells you off for it.

We stood there in the kitchen, me, Sara,  just staring at this enormous bloomer like it was something that had wandered in off the allotment by mistake. 

I still don't quite know what set it off. Maybe the yeast had ideas above its station, maybe the kitchen was warmer than I thought with everyone in and out all morning, maybe I've just finally cracked the knack of a good rise after all these years of trying. Whatever it was, it's given us more bread than sense this week, and I'm not complaining, not with a houseful of family to feed.

So go on then, tell me, has anyone else ever pulled a loaf out of the oven and genuinely wondered if it needed its own postcode? I'd love to know I'm not the only one standing in my kitchen looking faintly alarmed at my own baking.

Happy growing, everyone. See you on the plot.