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Precious stones
Breads
Bake some fresh bread to serve warm alongside your spread, or to go with hunks of cheese.
Plain and Simple White Bread
A good, old-fashioned, English, white, crusty loaf, soft inside and lightly textured, is still hard to beat – it's my own favourite for soldiers to go with softly boiled eggs, and the next day or the day after it always makes divine toast.
Mini Focaccia Bread with Red Onion, Olive and Rosemary Topping
Focaccia is an Italian flat bread made with olive oil. The flavour of the oil is important, so it's advisable to use a good, strong, fruity virgin olive oil for this.
Walnut and Raisin Bread
I think one of God's greatest gifts to man is good cheese, and it deserves good bread to go with it. This chunky, slightly sweet bread goes extremely well with a sharp, vigorous Cheddar, fresh goats' cheese or Cashel Blue. It also freezes very well.
Irish Oatmeal Soda Bread
This is the real thing – proper Irish bread. As it bakes in the oven and the aroma reaches you, close your eyes, picture the beauty of the Irish landscape and dream you're there.
Mini Focaccia Bread with Blue Cheese, Garlic and Thyme Topping
Focaccia is an Italian flat bread made with olive oil. The flavour of the oil is important, so it's advisable to use a good, strong, fruity virgin olive oil for this. What's good about focaccia is that it gives you scope to invent all kinds of interesting toppings.
Quick and Easy Wholemeal Loaf
The poet Pam Ayres once said, when describing her home-made wholemeal bread, that it was like 'biting into a cornfield', and that's it – the very best description I've ever come across. A crisp, crunchy crust and then all the flavour of the wholewheat grain – take a bite, close your eyes and you'll know just what she meant.
Soured Cream Soda Bread
I have a passion for Irish bread and always bring some back when I visit Dublin. The true Irish way of making this is with soured unpasteurised milk or buttermilk. The latter is available but not can't always be found in a hurry, so here I have used soured cream thinned down with water, which works perfectly.
