Greetings from Berkshire

[grahamhobbs]

MMM sorry I have to disagree, yeast does NOT need salt, in fact salt kills or at least inhibits yeast. Can't think of the region but an area of Italy is reknown for its bread made without salt.
Lots of recipes call for too much salt and too much yeast. Commercial bread is made FAST and has no taste so lots of salt is added to try to give it back some taste. Lots of yeast has to be used to compensate for the salt and to make it rise fast.
I have no idea how you do it in a bread machine, but if you want to make bread with real flavour cut down on the salt and yeast (almost minute quantities of yeast can be used), and let the dough prove over a long time in a cool or even cold place. Oh and forget all that about using warm water, use cold and slow things down, get real flavour in your bread.
MMM you were however correct that the amount of water was on the low side, with the high fat content, the bread should end up with lots of even little holes and a crisp crust.

[number6]

Hi Number 6 and welcome. My OH was born in the land of "the office" She took me there for the first time a couple of months ago.

For a tour of such places as the "Pied Horse" I think it was called, a now defunct pub with an interesting past and a trip round Langley where she grew up.

It was strangely foreign to a moonraker, but I was pleasantly suprised but much of it. Enjoy the allotment

Gert hello
Yes the roundabouts are still there and multiplying."The Pied horse" Ah! memories of a miss spent youth.Glad to see you are not completely anti as many are, the place has always treated me not too badly.Plus if you know where you going plenty of places to go foraging.I suggest you take a walk down the Jubilee river should you come again one of mans better ideas I think.

[thesunflowergal]

It was strangely foreign to a moonraker, but I was pleasantly suprised but much of it.

Gert could you please translate the two parts of that sentence? I don't know what a moonraker is, and unless Slough has changed in the 25 years or so since I last went there please tell me where you come from that is so astronomically dreadful that you were pleasantly surprised by Slough!!!!! Did you visit the trading estate?

I'd love to know actually if that lovely indoor shopping 'centre' has changed since the 1970s - oh I spent many a happy Saturday in there!

MMM- a Moonraker is a person born and bred in Wiltshire!!

[Gert]

MMM as thesunflowergal rightly says Moonrakers are Wiltshire folk

Smugglers detected an approaching Exciseman (revenue agent) on a bright moonlit night.
The smugglers dumped the kegs of French brandy into a nearby pond.
When the Exciseman had gone they began to fish out the barrels with hay rakes. However, the Exciseman came back and asked them what they were doing. They told him it was surely obvious, they were raking out the cheese they could see in the water.
The Exciseman laughed at them for being so stupid and rode off. The "moonrakers" left off raking the moon and recovered the kegs.

I really was suprised by Slough ! I'd never been there and thought it would be really grim, but honestly it wasn't

[Millymollymandy]

That's a great story as I was wondering about the strange name.

Glad you were surprised by Slough - it's probably a lot better than I remember it as a grim concrete block in the 70s.