Great British Bake Off star takes us around the world in bread

At the whipped peak of James Morton’s fame, he could not shop at Waitrose without being recognised as “that Scots boy from The Great British Bake Off”.
For ten weeks in 2012 his titanic battle to be named Britain’s best baker, elegantly clad in an eye-catching array of Fair Isle knitwear, gripped the nation. Truly, who could forget his Whisky Kugelhopf-Brioche Baba, which won him top spot in the sweet dough round and thrust him into the final? Sadly, Waitrose shoppers, that’s who, for even the freshest bread eventually becomes toast.
When I ask Morton, who has now become a GP, whether he is still routinely accosted in the patisserie aisle, he laughs. “The Waitrose fame has faded. It died down gradually over four or five years. In the past I was recognisable with my glasses on and then I could take them off and walk around uninterrupted.”
Today he, Fenella, his wife, an anaesthetist, and their two young daughters, Lilly, four and Eve, one, can stroll, or toddle, the aisles of their local branch in Newton Mearns, on the south side of Glasgow encased in a confectionary carapace of anonymity. He can even wear his glasses.
Yet while Morton may no longer enjoy the rock-cake status he once enjoyed with the nation’s couch bakers, those who prefer to munch and watch rather than actually mix and whip, he has built a growing reputation as a food writer, a successful and equally satisfying side-hustle to the day job of doctoring.
His latest book, his eighth in ten years, is The Big Book of Bread, a witty and enjoyable tour around the world’s best and most interesting breads, seeded with historical nuggets and clear instructional recipes on how to raise them in your own home.
I was particularly taken by Borodinsky bread, a Russian rye bread, allegedly invented by the widow of a general killed by Napoleon at the Battle of Borodino, with the caraway seeds signifying the lead shots and the loaf’s blackness, her grief.
The book was originally conceived as a world atlas. “I wanted to look at bread from everywhere in the world, I quickly realised that this was completely unachievable and would require a lifetime’s work. Yet the amazing thing about bread is that it tells a story. Each recipe tells an anthropological story, so I’ve tried to pick out breads — not necessarily the most known or in-demand breads — but ones that tell some kind of story, whether it is the scientific way it is made or a historic or colonial story behind its origins.”
After graduating from medical school at the University of Glasgow, Morton briefly began to train to be a surgeon, before deciding he was better suited to general practice. He married Fenella in 2016 and as well as raising a young family they have been refurbishing a 100-year-old sandstone town house in Glasgow. “Bringing it up to modern eco standards has been a huge endeavour over the last couple of years, especially with two young kids.”
As his readers and former viewers might imagine, the kitchen is the heart of the home, with worktops part concrete and part copper: “It’s pretty cool, I must say”. Over the years he has been sent almost every kitchen appliance devised but has settled on a Danish brand for his mixer, made by a company called Varimixer, “it is a small commercial mixer but it’s great for the home.”
He still tends to his sourdough starter each morning as he helps get the children ready for nursery and then in the evening he makes the dough, shapes it into loaves and leaves it in the fridge overnight, so it’s ready to bake the next day. “You have to create that in and around a busy family and working life.” It is not always easy — Lilly once added dog biscuits to his batter mix.
But bread is not what it used to be. The days of bread being the food of life are distant and in recent years it’s earned a bad reputation, shunned by the health conscious as a receptacle of empty calories with little genuine nutritional value. However, Morton believes this to be a little unfair.
“Bread is one of those things, I agree with a lot of these people who are against bread for various reasons, but that is really tarring all bread with the same brush. Indeed cake is bad for you, but cake in moderation is good, it is life enhancing. Bread is similarly life enhancing.
“As I say in the book we need to be looking at both health concerns and environmental concerns with commodity white wheat, white flour that is basically not particularly good for you in its most refined state. But then there are so many levels below that, and so many amazing local producers making really good flours that can be made into any of the recipes in this book and — indeed any standard baking recipes — I’d like to give a shout out to Scotland the Bread, which makes great flours.”
As a GP Morton would like to see everyone eat better, but believes public bodies such as Public Health Scotland need to update the advice they provide to the public. “The imagery that we have around this. The ‘Eatwell plate’ for example, how outdated it is in comparison with modern evidence and a modern society. I would advise you to look at Canada’s food guide. It is absolutely beautiful, a good guide with great recipes, and what represents a healthy diet and an environmentally sustainable diet.”
He is critical of Scotland’s continued emphasis on meats. “To be clear I would not be a proponent of a vegan diet. I believe in meat in moderation. It’s about looking at alternatives, looking at whole grains and selling it in a way that people can understand and absolutely imagine themselves eating. It’s not an inaccessible cartoon aimed at five to eight-year-olds, which is what it feels like at times.”
As we round up our conversation I ask how it changed his life and if he still watches The Great British Bake Off?
“Of course Bake Off changed my life. This is my eighth book. I have presented to many thousands of people about baking and got, I hope, so many people hooked on making bread and others of my hobbies such as brewing. I hope it’s not just changed my life but had a positive impact on other people’s lives as well.
“There is the odd series that I have missed but I do watch it. I do feel it is fairly static. It’s completely unchanging, which is the nice thing about it. Evidently they are scraping the barrel with the challenges. How many times can you have a Victoria sponge? No, you have to have a strange obscure sponge from Antarctica or something like that. It is getting more and more difficult, as you can see for the producers. But the lovely thing about Bake Off is the characters, the bakers themselves, who you bond with over the journey.”
The Big Book of Bread by James Morton is published by Quadrille, priced £30.
Makes 1 large loaf
Ingredients
• 400g rye flour• 100g wholemeal wheat flour, plus extra for dusting• 150g just-boiled water• 50g cracked rye flakes or coarsely milled rye (optional)• 1.5 tsp salt• 150g sourdough starter, fed with rye flour• 300g tepid water• 40g treacle (molasses)• 2 tsp caraway seeds• 2 tsp coriander seeds• butter, for greasing
Start by weighing your rye flour and wholemeal flours into a large bowl — or do as I do, and weigh directly into a sieve that sits on top of the bowl. Sieve the flour to remove the vast majority of the bran, and tip the bran into a smaller bowl. Add your just-boiled water to the bran, and stir to hydrate. Stir your cracked rye, if using, into the bran for a bit of extra texture, then set aside. Add your salt to your flours in the larger bowl. Add your starter, water and treacle, then mix with a wooden spoon into a dough. It might feel quite wet.
Give the dough an autolyse (rest) for 20–30 minutes and it will come together.
You will find kneading this dough in a traditional sense impossible — it won’t stretch but will break. Having said that, give it a go; a mixer helps, but get your hands in it to feel what a really tenacious dough feels like — it’s the opposite of elastic. With a few minutes of working, you should notice this becomes less so.
Rest for another hour somewhere warm, but not hot
Lightly dampen a work surface, then turn your dough out onto it. Use a wet hand to spread the dough out as thinly as you can before it starts breaking. Use your hand to spread your bran paste over the top, distributing it as evenly as you can. Then sprinkle over your caraway and most of your coriander, leaving a little for the top. Use your scraper to roll everything up, like the lamination method. Then stick it all back in the bowl to rise for another hour.
Give it a stretch and fold, really just to distribute the ingredients, then rest for a final 2 hours (so 4 warm hours total).
It’s now ready to shape. Turn the dough onto a floured surface, press it down lightly, then roll it up like a roulade or Swiss roll; try anything more elaborate and it will most likely break. Grease a 900g loaf tin, then place your bread inside. Brush the top with a little water, then sprinkle over your coriander, caraway and I like to add a bit of rye flour too.
Rest for a final 2 hours at room temperature, or put it in the fridge for 6–12 hours.
At least 15 minutes before you plan to bake, stick the oven on to 200°C (400°F) fan (220°C/425°F/gas 7). This one works well with a baking stone for some bottom heat, so make sure to preheat an extra 15 minutes, if using.
Don’t score the top, just place directly in the oven for 30 minutes, adding steam at the beginning by adding some ice cubes or water to a baking tray in the bottom of the oven. Then bash out of thetin and bake another ten minutes to crisp up the sides. Let cool completely before slicing. Serve with cream cheese and chopped chives, pepper and oil.