Were your bread baking efforts over lockdown...lacklustre?

While your friends and family posed on Zoom calls with puffy sourdoughs and banana loaves, were you embarrassed to join in the show-and-tell?

Mistley-based The Baker’s Cousin is hoping to help. Part of EDME, which has been producing flour and malted products in the village for over 140 years, the fun brand has launched a range of six bread mixes, designed so you can make bakery-worthy loaves in your home kitchen.

“You can have fun with dough,” says The Baker’s Cousin’s kneader-in-chief Mark Hodson, “and then experience fresh, nutritious bread straight from the oven. With one of The Baker’s Cousin bread mixes in your hands (or bread machine) and the help of the easy instructions, you will be creating impressive loaves right from the get-go. You don’t have to do much to rise to the challenge: just give it a ‘dough’.

“Puns aside, the fact your home will be filled with fabulous aromas once your loaves are in the oven is an additional benefit to the goodness of fresh, home-baked bread.”

The range, which includes dark or light rye, ancient grain, onion focaccia, seeded, and wholemeal, comes in 1kg resealable packaging, fortified with EDME malt, which imparts a delicious, wholesome flavour. Each pack will make two loaves.

You’ll find them online at thebakerscousin.com

Our verdict

We were sent the entire range of Baker’s Cousin bread mixes to try. Initially, as avid bread bakers we wondered why we’d bother with a mix. After all, you have to add your own yeast.

But once we’d kneaded, baked and sampled, we were sold.

A precise blend of grains, malt and natural additives has been mixed into the flour for you. We found the dough came together well without needing much extra flour for kneading, and it rose slightly better than our usual homemade bread.

The dark rye and seeded breads in particular were fantastic. They came out of the oven with a light, but toothsome crust, and rich crumb within – lasting for sandwiches and toasties for a day or two longer than anything we’ve made before.

Oh, and they tasted good too.