Gail's Artisan Bakery Cookbook: the stunningly beautiful cookbook from the ever-popular neighbourhood bakery

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However, I bite the bullet and get on with it (a process which takes most of the morning, and involves rolling out some recalcitrantly springy dough until it's a metre long, doing some fancy folding, pressing an enormous slab of butter into it, then repeating several times until my arms ache with the effort). Johansen and Lepard both make bun cakes, rather than individual buns, which not only saves space in the oven but looks pleasingly impressive.

Lepard uses a lot more liquid than the others for a very soft dough – his rolls are wonderfully fluffy and handsomely risen, but too light inside, despite the chewy crust; they almost melt in my mouth. GAIL’s will encourage you to try your hand at a basic foolproof bloomer, bake a satisfying sourdough, create morning muffins and pastries, bold salads, flavoursome pies, appetizing tarts and sandwiches, easy afternoon biscuits and cakes, and finally cook delicious savoury meals and desserts for supper.Sweet buns are best eaten warm from the oven, which means that, unless you're lucky enough to live near a Nordic bakery, they're definitely worth a go at home. They're easy to pull apart too, although if you find it difficult, you could always just eat the whole thing yourself. It's a bit leftfield though; Johansen's salt gives almost the same effect, though I don't think you need the vanilla-infused stuff she uses. When you take something beautiful and delicious out of the oven at 6am, you know that the rest of your day can’t possibly go wrong.

Using half plain spelt and half wholemeal spelt gives her buns a lovely nutty flavour, but my testers find them "much too heavy". When ready, a small crack will have formed around the edges of the brownie, and the centre will still be a little wobbly. Scatter the pecan halves generously across the surface, and bake for anything between 15 and 30 minutes.Leave the brownie to cool in its tin, then wrap the tin in cling film and chill overnight before cutting and devouring. Baking is a simple craft and I honestly believe that learning to bake involves rediscovering how to use a part of our body and brain – a reflex that we’ve neglected and forgotten about, but that we all have.

Half-Norwegian and all-round Scandinavian food expert Signe Johansen uses spelt flour in the recipe in her Scandilicious Baking book, explaining elsewhere that she finds this ancient grain "more digestible" than wheat. Then, once we’d got our recipes right, we insisted on testing them all with the most commonplace equipment we could get hold of.Waking up early, going to say hello to my doughs and sourdough starters, firing up the ovens before other people’s days have even begun… This is my idea of heaven. Meanwhile, make the filling by beating together all the ingredients until soft and easily spreadable.

I might be an expert in making a baker’s dozen of loaves, but when I went to bake just one it was a total failure.Ground cardamom is far less widely available here than in Scandinavia, but it's easy to do yourself, and I think gives a more mellow flavour. When the milk is warm rather than hot, make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients and add the egg. It’s our human need to create: to take two things, put them together and see if we can make something totally new out of them. Since opening the first GAIL’s in 2005, the team behind London’s most inviting artisan bakery has been on a mission to bring high-quality, handmade bread and delicious vibrant food to local communities. Smear the filling out across the dough (it's easiest to use your hands for this), then, starting from one of the long edges, roll the dough up tightly like a swiss roll.