Home-made Garlic Bread

I've never known one of these, fresh from the oven, to sit around for more than a minute irrespective of any fussy taste buds hovering close by. It's the one thing that unites fuss-pot eaters world-wide, is it not? There are few culinary combinations that go together as well as garlic, butter, parsley and bread. If it couldn't get any better than that, it's also one of the easiest things to make yourself from scratch. Forget the sickly, gloopy, fake-garlicy shop bought ones.

Nobody really needs a recipe for how to make it but a quick check on a fool-proof method for the very best garlic bread is handy and a good excuse to make some of your own.

Multiply the butter ingredients by as many as you like wrap it in cling film and keep in the fridge for a week or so, making the next one you make even easier.

Ingredients:
1 small baguette
5 cloves of garlic
Small bunch of parsley
70g butter
Salt and pepper
Grease proof paper

Pre-heat the oven to 170 degrees C

Slice the garlic bread using a bread-knife into smallish 1-inch sections almost all the way down but leaving a join at the bottom of the baguette to hold it all together.

Peel and roughly chop the garlic, tear up the parsley, put in a bowl with the butter and a few pinches of salt and pepper. Whizz with a hand held blender until it makes a lovely bright green colour. You might need to turn this off a scrape out round near the blade with a spoon as the butter will stick quite a bit. (If you don't have a blender just bash them about with a pestle and mortar or something else heavy until they have combined well).

Now spoon the parsley butter right down into the gaps cut in the bread using a teaspoon. Keeping all the butter locked inside beneath the surface ready to infuse the bread as is bakes.

Cut a large rectangle piece of grease-proof paper or tin-foil and wrap the baguette up tight. Place in the middle of the pre-heated oven for about 20 minutes or less if not fan-assisted.