Paul Hollywood's Bread tv programme

Justamum

I bought the Bread book and I've tried the Oat, Rye and Ale bread and the Malt Loaf. On the tv it showed him happily kneading away and ending up with a lovely ball of dough. However I've followed his recipes to the letter and using the quantities he gives you end up with something the consistency of a cake batter - definitely unkneadable! I made the oat one last week and ended up pouring the mixture into a cake tin. It tasted fine when it was cooked, but definitely too much water.

Yesterday I made the malt loaf. Again it was cake batter consistency so I poured it into a cake tin. It took twice as long to cook as he said. It does taste nice though now it's cooked.

I'm not a novice at making bread, and could tell as soon as I read the recipes that there seemed to be rather a lot of liquid to the quantity of flour, but as they were both new recipes I like to do them 'as written' the first time.

Yesterday I made the bloomer as he'd written it - again there seemed to be far more liquid than I would use for the quantity of flour given. I added in as much as I could but ended up with about 30ml left over.

Had anybody else tried these recipes? I wonder if they are properly tested before they are published?

Anyway I'm not impressed. His is the only cook book I have by a 'celebrity' chef. I'm going to stick to nobodies in future again I think! (there's a bread book at my local library which I'm going to try - it's got lots of different foreign breads in it).