How to bake wholemeal bread

Baking your own bread is apparently a dangerous pastime. "Beware of making that first loaf," cautions the late, great cookery writer, Margaret Costa. "Unless you are quite exceptionally lucky in your baker, and/or have a very easy-going family, you will find it difficult to go back to shop bread again."

Perhaps bread has improved since those lines were written in 1970, or maybe I'm just exceptionally lazy, but however much I enjoy pretending I'm Barbara Good, I've not yet found a recipe quick or reliable enough to threaten my bakery habit. (Soda bread, as taught to me by the wonderful Pierce and Valerie McAuliffe of Dunbrody Cookery School in Wexford, is the exception to this, but I lack sufficient Irish genes to want to wake up to it every morning.)

I decide that if I'm going to be eating homemade bread on a regular basis, it really ought to be wholemeal, to offset the enormous amounts of butter I will in all probability be topping it with. Unfortunately, wholemeal bread is, according to many experts, a tricky thing to get right, as the lower gluten content of the flour makes for dense results – the classic worthy loaf beloved of those who also, according to some wits, enjoy knitting their own yoghurt. I need to find a loaf that's quick enough to bake twice a week, yet tasty enough to keep me away from the seeded bloomers.