shewhomust | Breakfast on the train

We are on the train to Edinburgh, and we have just had breakfast.

durham_rambler used his ticket-buying superpower, and we are travelling first class, where you get free wi-fi and breakfast brought to your seat. I'd pictured a coffee-and-croissants kind of breakfast, but no, there is a choice of cooked dishes - and I'm not feeling grumpy (not feeling grumpy despite having my breakfast delivered in all the wrong order! must be on holiday!) so I will say only that I think they overstretch themselves, and consider instead my own experiments in breakfast materials.

- Pause while we cross the Tweed, to admire the shadow of the train moving across the shadow of the viaduct -

The curve hit bottom with the Swedish rye: not so much a loaf as a brick, if you can slice it, it makes acceptable toast - but slicing it is a challenge.

Next I made another batch of Dan Lepard's barley flatbread, with the rest of the barley granary bread mix I had bought at the market. I didn't really have enough time for this, but we were planning to be out next day (itws the day we didn't go to Lindisfarne); perhaps it might have been better with a little longer to rise - and if I hadn't been rushing, I'd have had a last look at the recipe and remembered to oil the top before I put it in the oven. As it was, it rose unevenly, and not as exuberantly as the first timeI made it, but the taste was good. The texture was if anything too knubbly. Next time, half and half, and remember that last oiling for a softer crust.

The starter spent the next six days in the fridge, and seems to have liked this time / temperature combination. I stirred in the bubbles on the top, and it was such a beautiful unctuous cream, and delicate oatmeal beige: it behaved well, too, and the dough rose willingly. It was, in theory, half white flour, a quarter buckwheat and a quarter wholemeal - but it was reluctant to absorb so much flour, and I stopped before I'd added all the wholemeal. Since I was uasing walnut oil, I added a handful each of sultanas and walnuts, made four rolls and a small loaf, and I'd call that a success.

While we are on holiday in Fife, the starter is staying with S., who had panicked and discarded her first batch (it was looking sinister...)