The Bread Making Popular Front - The Cake And Bake Show at Manchester

A Wonderful looking loaf (Thanks to Debi Davis)

Whilst attending this show with my wife, Frankie, one thing became quite obvious to me over and above the popularity of the Cookery phenomenon that is the Great British Bake Off and the appeal of "Celebrity", and that is the growth of interest in bread making. There were easily half a dozen or more Flour companies at the show in one form or another together with another half a dozen artisan bakeries selling baked breads directly to the public. There was huge interest and attendance at the Bread Baking Demonstrations with people like Paul Hollywood and Dan Leppard extolling the virtues and the ease of baking your own loaf.

You could buy the kits with all the ingredients in one bag, or you could buy artisan flours, nutty flours, Canadian Extra Strong flours, quick yeast, bicarbonate of Soda, seed additives, crunchy additives and plain or self raising flours.

You could easily obtain eight or nine different loaf tins including a really shiny Hovis Tin I had my eye on all weekend - for £32 - a price I couldn't justify, even after winning second prize on the Traders' Grand National Sweepstake, run by my friend, the incorrigible Barry Davies (Also inspired to bake his own bread this weekend). There were spatulas, stirrers, slicers and peels - and, naturally, there was advice on how to use all of the above. I was really very happy to see so much variety and expertise available and I know of many people who were encouraged to bake their own loaves who perhaps wouldn't have been minded to before hand.

It's the enthusiasm that I enjoyed much more than the commercial aspect of the show. Look at the photograph at the top of this piece, kindly loaned to me by Debi Davis (@debidavis1) who was obviously inspired at the show - and she bought one of those lovely looking tins - and you can see just how bread could be inspirational - what a fantastic looking loaf. That one photograph encapsulates everything about the show for me - Bread, Shiny Tin and Atmosphere. People are really and genuinely interested in baking bread at home for the health aspects as much as anything else.

Including water, there need only be four ingredients in bread, three if you make a sourdough starter, so next time you go to the Supermarket and buy bread in a bag, check how many ingredients are listed, if its more than 4 or 5 then it ain't healthy and it ain't real.

I encourage you to try baking your own - it's easy, it's healthy and it's fun....

GBBO stars Cat Dresser and John Whaite