Italian Christmas Sweet Bread ~ Panettone

Have yourself a merry little Christmas.

Let your heart be light,

From now on our troubles

Will be out of sight........

I must apologise for my lack of blogging of late, and I so much wanted to share with you lots of Christmas bakes! I’ve been busy looking after the sick and wounded here, what with Mr R (hubby) who is recovering from flu and now unfortunately Miss R (daughter) has come down with this nasty flu!! However, I have managed to squeeze in a few bakes one being a Panettone that I would really like to share with you today. I have seen so many of these gorgeous sweet breads around for sale in the shops at this time of year and I thought wouldn’t it be fun to bake my own this Christmas. My Panettone was made in my Kitchen Aid mixer but by all means, it can easily be made by hand to bring a little festive Italian baking into your home.........

I am also truly flattered and humbled to be the luckiest girl in the world today!! I opened my email to find waiting in my inbox an email from Aparna @ My Diverse Kitchen to let me know I had been chosen by her judges to win her blog 1st birthday event, Sweet Celebrations – with my winning bake of Hummingbird Cake!! Thank you SO MUCH Aparna for holding such a lovely event and it was such a pleasure to bake a cake for your Blogs 1st Birthday. Also my thanks go to the judges for deeming my cake worthy of winning!! The winning prize I am very excited to reveal that is being sent to me is a lovely book by, Asha Khatau’s, Vegetarian Cuisines of The World. Christmas seems to have already arrived for me with this wonderful gift I am to receive; as I type this post, I have the largest smile on my face you could imagine ~ thank you once again Aparna for making me luckiest girl in the world today!! I also have to thank the lovely H.C. *Happy Cook* @ My Kitchen Treasures for such a lovely recipe to bake from ~ thank you my dear friend!

Panettone

Makes 1 loaf

Ingredients
75ml (3 fl oz) brandy
175g (6oz) raisins
550 - 620g (1lb 4oz -1lb 6oz) strong plain flour
175g (6oz) butter
5ml (1tsp) salt
65g (21/2 oz) caster sugar
Pinch of freshly ground nutmeg
2.5ml (1/2 tsp) vanilla essence
10.5g easy blend dried yeast
Finely grated rind of 1 lemon
Finely grated rind of 1 orange
2 eggs
2 egg yolks
175ml (6 fl oz) milk
175g (6 oz) mixed candied orange and citron peel, chopped
Icing sugar, to decorate if desired.

Method

Lightly oil a 17cm (7in) round spring release cake tin. Line the base and sides with a sheet of parchment paper which sits 12cm (5in) above the rim. Place the brandy and raisins in a bowl and leave to soak for 2 - 4 hours.

Sift the flour into the bowl and add the butter and salt, fit dough hook and blend on speed min for 2 minutes, until combined. Add the sugar, nutmeg, vanilla essence, yeast, rinds, eggs and milk and blend on speed min for 2 minutes, until a soft dough forms. Continue kneading on speed 2 for 2 minutes.

Remove the bowl. Cover with lightly oiled clear - film and leave for about 2 - 4 hours, until well risen and doubled in size. Drain raisins.

Fit the bowl and dough hook and knead on speed 2 for 1 minute. Add the fruits and knead on speed 2 for 2 minutes, until well combined. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and roll into a ball to fit in the cake tin. Cut a deep cross in the surface of the dough and leave until risen 2.5cm (1in) above the top of the tin.

Preheat the oven to 200°C, 400°F, Gas Mark 6 and bake the bread for 15 minutes. Reduce the temperature to 180°C, 350°F, Gas Mark 4 and bake for a further 40 minutes. Allow to cool in the tin for 10 minutes. Turn out and leave to cool completely. Dust heavily with icing sugar.

Buttery Brioche Bread- Baked With Passion For A Worthy Cause!!!

Unadulterated decadence!!

Tuesday evening I started on my preparation for making buttery brioche because no matter what; I had to bake bread!! Even though its cold here and the proving of bread takes forever to achieve, I needed to do this come rain or shine, nothing was going to distract me from my ultimate goal!! I planned to make enough dough for one brioche à tête and little brioche rolls with a chocolate centre.

This is my first time of baking this light and airy beautiful French bread but certainly not my first taste of this delectable bread. My initial experience of brioche was many years ago when I stayed in France having tasted it freshly baked and served at breakfast with a large café au lait, sheer divineness! I can’t understand why it has taken me such a long time to bake this wonderful bread, could it have been the fear of mastering the art of this superb bread - yes!!!

Little Brioche Rolls with a Chocolate Centre

My reasons behind my desperation to bake bread are, Deeba at Passionate About Baking blog, which is a beautiful blog with mouth-watering recipes and superb photography of food, tagged me. I am very touched and also delighted to be considered for this tag for such a worthwhile cause.

Breadline Africa is a registered charity in South Africa that is seeking to put an end to poverty in South Africa and further afield in Africa. Their aim is to break the cycle of poverty and help communities to achieve long term self-sustainability. Breadline Africa was founded in 1993 by social workers and communities in South Africa with minded colleagues in Europe, (who were well placed to source out donations). They are geared to help fund small ground level projects in Africa which are most likely to succeed with financial help.

On Blog Action Day Breadline Africa launched their Worldwide Blogger Bake-Off campaign. The aim is to raise $1 million in funds for a project to convert shipping containers into locations for food production and distribution in Africa. It is hoped that these sustainable community kitchens will not only provide food such as bread and soup to those in need, but also opportunities for skills development within poor communities.

BAKE BREAD – GIVE DOUGH – FEED AFRICA!

Bloggers can download the Blogger Bake off widget and tag five other bloggers to do the same.

I am tagging (I hope you don’t mind ladies) five lovely ‘dear’ bloggers to bake bread.

Sylvie @ A Pot of Tea and a Biscuit
Gloria @ Canela Kitchen's Recipes
Uma @ Essence of Andhra
Rosa @ Rosa's Yummy Yums
Maria @ Two Peas and Their Pod

Close up of Brioche à Tête

Brioche à Tête

Brioche à Tête & Little Brioche Rolls with a Chocolate Centre

You will need to start this recipe the night before the dough is needed.

Makes 1 loaf and 9 rolls

Ingredients
400g (14 oz) strong white bread flour
50ml (2 fl oz) milk
2½ level tsp easy-blend dried yeast
4 large eggs + 3 egg yolks
50g (2 oz) caster sugar
1 level tsp salt
250g (9 oz) unsalted butter, softened
Lindit 70% cocoa solids chocolate (9 squares) for the chocolate centred rolls
Beaten egg for glazing
You will need a large brioche mould 20cm (8in), a baking sheet, both greased well with butter.

Method

The evening before, heat the milk in a pan until boiling point, then pour into a jug and leave aside to cool (100 -110 degrees temperature). Top up with warm water to bring the measures to 50ml (2 fl oz). Now stir in the yeast and weigh the flour and take out 2 tablespoons and add to the yeast mixture, stir well and leave aside covered over for about 30 minutes until the yeast is frothy and activated.

Now the yeast is activated, beat the eggs and yolks, sugar and salt together in a mixing bowl. Pour in the yeast add the remaining flour and mix together until it forms a rough dough. Cover the bowl as it is without needing, to rest.

*Note* have a warm bowl of soapy water at the ready before the next stage to wash your hands; this is the fun part!

Place the dough out of the bowl onto the work surface, without any flour, and have a scraper handy. Cut the butter into small pieces and mix it into the dough with your hands. Start to work the butter into the dough by stretching the dough side to side, backwards and forwards, and rubbing into the dough with your hands. It is very sticky the dough at this point, use your scraper to bring the dough altogether again if it spreads too much and sticking to the work surface. Once all the butter is worked into the dough and it feels elastic and very soft, scrape it back into the bowl. Cover the top of the bowl with cling film and leave overnight in the fridge to chill.

Next day, butter well a brioche tin and baking sheet. Divide the dough into half firstly, (keep the dough you are not working with in the fridge covered). With the first half of dough on a lightly floured surface, divide into nine pieces and flatten out slightly placing a square of chocolate in the middle of the dough. Roll up into a ball shape and place on the prepared baking sheet. Do the same to the remaining eight pieces of dough. Cover over with a clean tea towel and place in a warm place to double in size. Once doubled in size egg wash each ball of dough and place into the preheated oven 200°C/fan 180°C/400°F/Gas mark 6 and bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown and cooked through. Place on a wire rack to cool slightly and eat warm with the chocolate in the centre still melted oozing.

For the brioche à tête, with the second piece of dough, shape three-quarters of the dough on a floured work surface into a ball shape and place into the prepared brioche tin. With a floured finger make a hole in the centre all the way down. Take the remaining dough and roll into a pear shape and fit the narrow end of the ball into the hole in the centre. Cover over with a clean tea towel and place in a warm place to double in size. Once doubled in size egg wash trying not to let any of the egg wash go down the sides of the tin. Place into the preheated oven 220°C/200°C/425°F/Gas mark 7 for 15 minutes. Reduce the heat to 180°C/160°C/350°F/gas mark 4 for about 20 minutes or until golden brown all over, then remove from the oven and tin and cool on a wire rack. If the top is becoming too brown before the brioche is fully baked through, cover the top over with some foil to prevent burning.

Eat and enjoy the fluffiness of this gorgeous buttery slightly sweet brioche bread, while it takes you to another level of unadulterated decadence!!

Coming up soon on Rosie Bakes A ‘Peace’ of Cake – a few awards and a MeMe. I haven’t forgotten my ‘dear’ friends those of you who have kindly bestowed me with these treasures :-D Rosie x

World Food Day – Time To Be Thankful

Three very gracious ladies I am very fond of in the blogging-sphere are hosting a ‘MOST’ important event, World Food Day - Time To be Thankful. Val of More Than Burnt Toast, Ivy of Kopiaste & Giz, of Equal Opportunity Kitchen.

Quote from Ivy; “Val and I have decided that we should continue bringing awareness and we are still working on how we can continue to increase awareness and understanding and take action to do all we can year round to alleviate hunger”.

World Food Day – Time To Be Thankful, is to highlight and bring awareness to the hunger problems that exist around the world! Hunger is not only in the third world, hunger happens in our own streets and not too many miles away from us! November is a month of Thanksgiving in parts of the world and here in the U.K. during October each year, we celebrate Harvest Festival where we are thankful for bountiful crops, displays of food and crops are placed in churches and/or schools and we give praise through prayer and song to celebrate our harvest. The food is then divided into parcels and given to the disadvantaged! I feel very passionate and hold closely this cause of World Food Day to my heart! I have been very fortunate in my life to have ample food and never felt those pangs of hunger that many other unfortunates have to endure around the world!

Please let us here in the blogging-sphere make a difference and place our dishes side by side in the conga line of food to feed the world! To join in this event and for more information click on one of the above links to either Val’s, Ivy’s or Giz’s blogs to participate in such a great cause my ‘dear’ friends.

I am submitting to the world food table a wonderful seasonal Pumpkin Soup and a recipe from Rachel Allen’s NEW book Bake for, Rustic Bacon & Cheddar Bread. My reason for choosing these two items of food are; they don’t cost an excessive amount of money to make; soup and bread and this type of food are given out by volunteers to homeless people living on the streets who struggle for warmth and food in the U.K. with every passing day!

Pumpkin, Sweet Potato & Smoked Chilli Soup

A wonderful seasonal soup with a little kick in flavour from the chilli to warm you up on cold autumn/winter day.

Ingredients
25g (1 oz) butter
1 clove garlic, crushed
225g (8 oz) sweet potato, peeled and flesh diced
1 medium pumpkin, peeled, deseeded and flesh diced
¼ tsp sweet smoked paprika
1/2 red chilli, finely diced
750 ml (26 fl oz) vegetable stock
2 tsp wholegrain mustard
1 tbsp Parmesan cheese, finely grated
125 ml (¼ pint) double cream
Salt & freshly ground black pepper

Method

Melt the butter in a large pan; add the garlic, sweet potato and pumpkin, giving a good stir then cover with a lid and cook for 10 minutes. Add the smoked paprika and red chilli, then cook for a minute. Add the vegetable stock and bring to the boil, cover with a lid and simmer for 20 minutes until the vegetables are tender. Allow to cool a little, then stir in the mustard and Parmesan. Blend in a food processor or with a stick blender until smooth. Return to the pan if using a food processor, add the cream and season to taste. Gently reheat through and serve.

Rustic Bacon & Cheddar Bread

Such a great rustic savoury bread and very easy to make with no proving necessary! It’s loaded with flavour from the cheese and bacon and a slice served with a hot bowl of steaming soup is remarkable. This recipe comes from Rachel Allan’s NEW book Bake, a most wonderful book packed full of wonderful treats for any baker!

Makes 1 loaf

Ingredients
320g (11½ oz) plain flour
1 tbsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp freshly ground black pepper
100g (3½ oz) Cheddar cheese, grated
100g (3½ oz) bacon lardons, cooked until just crisp in a little sunflower oil and cooled
200ml (7 fl oz) milk
2 eggs
1 tbsp whole grain mustard
60 ml (2 fl oz) olive oil

13 x 23 cm (5 x 9 in) loaf tin

Method

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas mark 4. Lightly oil and line the loaf tin with non-stick baking paper. Sift all the dry ingredients together into a large bowl. Add the grated cheese and the cooled bacon lardons and mix well. Pour the milk into a large measuring jug, add the eggs, mustard and olive oil and whisk well to combine. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and slowly pour in the liquid, stirring all the time until it is fully incorporated, to form a fairly liquid dough. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake in the oven for 50 minutes. Remove from the tin and allow to cook for a further 10 minutes on the oven shelf to crisp up the bottom. When cooked, it will sound hollow when tapped on the base. Allow to cool on a wire rack before eating.

My appreciation goes to Val, Ivy & Giz for hosting this World Food Day – Time To Be Thankful – Rosie x

L is for leopard bread – World Bread Day ‘08

Zorra @ Kochtopf is hosting the 3rd World Bread Day today, on October 16th ’08. The original World Bread Day - an event created by UIB International Union of Bakers and Bakers-Confectioners - wants to provide an opportunity to talk about bread and bakers, to find out about their history, their importance as well as their future.

This has been a great opportunity to try something new in the bread department to bake! I decided to bake leopard bread and what inspired me to this loaf is it distinctive crust with spots akin to a leopard pattern. The unique crust is achieved by mixing olive oil and semolina together and applying this on the crust before proving. Delicious tasting bread with a lovely soft texture and a slight crusty outside.

Leopard Bread Spots

Leopard Bread

Ingredients
500g (1 lb 2 oz) strong plain white bread flour
7g sachet fast-action dried yeast
1 level tsp salt
4 tbsp olive oil
4 tbsp semolina

You will need a baking sheet lightly greased

Method

Tip the flour into a bowl and stir in the yeast and salt. Add 2 tablespoons of olive oil to 300ml of tepid water in a jug, and then add to the four and mix to form a soft dough.

Turn the dough out on to a lightly floured work surface and knead it for 5 -8 minutes or in a kitchen mixer with a dough hook until it’s smooth and elastic. Shape the dough into an oval with your hands on a floured work surface and place on a greased baking tray.

Mix the remaining olive oil with the semolina to a thick paste in a jug. Spread this over the top and sides of the loaf with a small palette knife. Cover the loaf with a clean tea towel, and leave in a warm place to prove for 40 -60 minutes or until doubled in size.

Preheat the oven to 220°C/fan200°C/425°F/Gas mark 7.

Bake the loaf in the centre of the preheated oven for 20 – 25 minutes or until lightly golden and sounds hollow when tapped on the underneath. Remove the loaf from the oven and slide onto a wire a rack to cool.

Serve sliced with butter – eat and enjoy :)

Lavash Crackers & Avocado Salsa – Daring Bakers Challenge

The hosts for this month’s Daring Bakers challenge are Natalie @ Gluten a Go Go & Shel @ Musings From The Fish Bowl. They are both making history at the Daring Bakers due to the torch being handed over for the first time to Alternative – Daring Bakers! - Well done ladies!! They certainly stepped up to the plate with a most wonderful challenge this month of Lavash crackers (with a choice of gluten free or non gluten free), and our own choice of toppings/dip/salsa/relish or spreads.

What are Lavash crackers? They are an Armenian style cracker and similar to the many other Middle Eastern and North African flatbreads, known by different names such as, mankoush or mannaeesh (Lebanese), barbari (Iranian), Khoubiz or Khobz (Arabian). Aiysh (Egyptian) kesret and mella (Tunisian), pide or pita (Turkish) and pideh (Armenian). The main difference between these breads is how thick or thin the dough is rolled and how it is baked. Many of these breads would be cooked on stones or red hot pans. The key element to a good crisp lavash is to ensure the dough is rolled paper thin. The sheet of dough can be cut into shapes before baking or broken into shards after baking.

I have never heard let alone attempted to bake these delicious crackers before, but I must admit they are spectacular and I will certainly be baking these again! The Daring Bakers wanted us to use our imaginations and creativity with various toppings for the crackers; it’s always great to be able to add one’s own touches to a bake. The toppings I used in my crackers are; sweet smoked paprika, cumin seeds, sesame seeds, Maldon sea salt, mixed dried herbs & cayenne pepper and I adore the rustic finish of broken shards to these crackers. To accompany the crackers, I selected an Avocado Salsa but the margins here were endless for salsa etc, just as long as it was vegan and gluten free.

I really have enjoyed this month’s challenge it’s been a blast! I felt like an Armenian mamma lifting the dough from the work surface and waving it in the air to place it down again to relax before re-rolling once again until paper thin.

The recipe for the Lavash crackers was sourced from: The Bread Baker’s Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread, by Peter Reinhart.

Here is the recipe for the Lavash crackers

For The Avocado Salsa

Ingredients
1 small ripe avocado
½ small red onion, peeled and finely chopped
1 tbsp lime juice
1 tbps fresh coriander, chopped
1 garlic clove, peeled and chopped very finely
½ red chilli chopped into tiny pieces or add more if you prefer it hotter
Pinch of sugar
Salt & pepper
Garnish with either sprigs of coriander or flat leaf parsley.

Method

Stone, peel and dice the avocado, then mix with the onion, lime juice, coriander, garlic, red chilli and sugar. Season to taste and place into a serving bowl and wrap in cling film and set aside for 10 minutes for the flavours to mingle before eating. Garnish with coriander or flat leaf parsley.

Cornish Saffron Cake

Cornish Saffron Cake

Slices of Cornish Saffron Cake

In the South West of England such as Cornwall, spices have been used in baking and cooking since early days of trading. Ships would have arrived from the orient to take advantage for a safe place to harbour whilst trading spices such as saffron in Cornwall. Saffron, the most precious and most expensive spice in the world became popular to use in yeasted breads and cakes in this part of the country, giving a rich golden-yellow hue and flavour to baked goods.

Saffron soaking

Although this bake is called a Cornish Saffron Cake, it is not sweet and resembles more of a fruit bread loaf. This possibly could have been served at tea time in slices spread with butter and perhaps an additional choice of honey or preserves for sweetness.

Kneading the dough with its golden-yellow hue

The production of this bake is achieved in the same way you would make bread by fermenting the yeast and mixing into dough to knead, prove, knock back and to prove again before baking. The yeast used in this recipe is dried yeast NOT fast action yeast.

Cornish Saffron Cake

Cornish Saffron Cake

Makes a 900g (2 lb) loaf

Ingredients
7g (¼ oz) dried active yeast
32g (1¼ oz) caster sugar
175ml (6 fl oz) tepid water
7g (¼ oz) powdered milk
250g (9 oz) strong plain white flour, sifted
7g (¼ oz) saffron, ground and soaked for several hours in 2 tsp of warm water
A large pinch of salt
65g (2½ oz) softened butter
150g (5oz) mixed dried fruit with mixed candied peel

You will need a 900g (2 lb) loaf tin lightly greased with a little butter

Method

In a jug add the tepid water, sugar, yeast and mix through then add the powdered milk and 25g (1 oz) of the flour. Whisk leaving the jug in a warm place to froth and double in size for approximately 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven 180°C/fan 160°C/350°F/Gas mark 4.

In a large bowl add the remaining flour and butter and rub through with your fingertips until it looks like fine breadcrumbs. Now add the salt & dried fruit with mixed candied peel and stir until all mixed through. Strain the saffron and add to the dry mixture and then add the yeast mixture and mix through until combined. Turn out the mixture onto a floured work surface and knead until the dough is fairly elastic. Place back into a clean mixing bowl and leave covered with a clean tea towel until doubled in size approximately 1 hour. Tip out of the bowl and knock the dough back and lightly knead into shape to fit the loaf tin. Place into the loaf tin and leave covered over with a clean tea towel again in a warm place to rise until the dough rises almost to the top of the tin, approximately 30 minutes.

Place into the preheated oven and bake for 50 – 1 hour or until fully baked. (The top should be golden-brown and the bottom of the loaf should sound hollow when tapped). Remove from the oven and leave to stand in the tin for 10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to finish cooling.

Serve slices spread with butter, honey or a choice of preserves.

Festive Stollen

I have spoken previously about my old pass-me-down recipes from an elderly friend regarding my Christmas Fruit Cake & Christmas Pudding recipes. Last night I was browsing through my very old cookbook that has yellowed with age, also the handwritten recipes I have stored inside, and I found a real gem of a recipe handwritten on a scrap of yellowed paper for Stollen too! I find these traditional recipes marvellous to re-create with a very nostalgic feel, and no better time than at Christmas too when you are thinking of family & friends past and present!

Dresdner in Germany is where the most famous Stollen originates, but I am sure this recipe still stands its muster. It has the flavours of dark rum, almond extract, mixed spice, cinnamon and mixed dried fruits, peel, glace cherries and good quality marzipan. Have I sold the idea enough yet for you to also bake this? Even better still, it will keep well wrapped and stored in an airtight container for two weeks to develop even more depth of flavour! I haven’t cut into my Stollen to show you it sliced due to storing this little treasure away for my family Christmas this year.

Festive Stollen

Makes 1 large loaf

Ingredients
275g (10 oz) mixed fruit - with mixed peel
4 tbsp dark rum
400g (14 oz) strong white bread flour
Pinch of salt
50g (2 oz) caster sugar
½ tsp mixed spice
½ tsp ground cinnamon
A few drops of almond extract
7g fast action dried yeast (1 sachet)
1 egg, beaten
140ml (5 fl oz) lukewarm whole milk
50g (2 oz) butter, melted
50g (2 oz) whole blanched almonds, chopped
50g (2 oz) glace cherries, washed dried and chopped into quarters
225g (8 oz) good quality marzipan
For The Topping
50g (2 oz) melted butter, for bushing
Icing sugar, for dusting

Method

You will need a baking tray lined with non-stick paper.

In a saucepan place the mixed fruit with mixed peel and the dark rum. Gently heat through take off the heat and cling film the top of the saucepan. Leave to one side to cool. *I do this the night before and leave the fruit to soak overnight*.

In a large mixing bowl, sieve the flour and salt together then add, sugar, mixed spice, cinnamon, yeast. Then stir in the mixed fruits and rum from the saucepan, glace cherries and almonds. Make a well in the middle of the mixture and pour in the butter, lukewarm milk, egg and almond extract, then mix in until all combined.

Lightly flour a work surface and take the dough out of the bowl and knead for 5 – 6 minutes. Place back into the bowl and cover with a damp tea towel and leave to prove in a warm place until doubled in size.

Turn out the dough and on a lightly floured surface knock back the dough kneading for about 3 – 4 minutes. With a rolling pin roll the dough gently into a 23 x 30cm (9 x 12in) oval. Roll the marzipan into a sausage shape to fit just the centre of the dough and place in the middle. Fold the dough from top edge away from you slightly more over the middle, then take the next edge nearest you at the bottom of the dough and fold over the top to just slightly over lap. Seal the sides and top with your hands pressing down and place onto a non-stick paper lined baking tray.

Cover over the loaf with a damp tea towel and leave in a warm place to rise until doubled in size.

Preheat oven to 190°C/fan 170°C/375°F/Gas mark 5.

Bake for 30 minutes or until the loaf is golden brown and sounds hollow when you tap the base with your hand. Cover the top with baking paper if becoming to brown before the end of baking time.

Bring out of the oven and brush over generously with melted butter and dust with icing sugar.

Leave to fully cool on a wire rack. Serve in slices or wrap in greaseproof paper or foil and store in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks.

Hot from the press & into my oven - stout, oat and honey knots

Freshly baked from the oven and cooling

Dan Lepard’s striking stout, oat and honey knots were a ‘piece’ of cake to bake from his exclusive recipe posted 23rd November 2007 in “The Word of Mouth Guardian ”

I just couldn’t wait to try this recipe out today. I’ve never baked bread with stout and oats before so this was a brand new venture for me. Mixing, kneading and proving the dough before baking may seem time consuming, but in-between sit back, kick off those shoes and relax. I found Dan’s recipe very instructive every step of the way, don’t be hesitant and give this recipe ago.

I really can’t begin to describe that wonderful smell of freshly baked bread wafting through my kitchen. My taste buds tingled in anticipation for that first bite into one of those delightful stout, oat and honey knots.

I wasn’t far wrong in my assumptions of them being good, and they would be gorgeous served as a Ploughman’s lunch. There’s none of that pappiness in these rolls, which you get from mass produced bread!

I will defiantly be baking these time and time again…….

White Bread Rolls

I find there’s nothing better than the smell of bread baking in the oven. It’s aroma wafts through the kitchen to greet you and gets those taste buds tingling! Also it has its advantage of giving you a good work out in kneading and knocking back the dough, and a good stress reliever too. Throw away those stress dummies if you have one, bash and thump a piece of dough instead and get excellent end results of freshly baked bread. How good is that?

I’ve made bread rolls here and shaped them in cottage loaf style and long loaves. To shape them into cottage loaves, roll two balls of dough one larger than the other, place the smaller one on top and with your index finger poke it down the middle and hey presto you have the shape. For the long rolls, form them into sausage shapes and with a sharp knife make two slashes into the top of the dough.

The recipe here isn’t from the book shown in the photo by Andrew whitley – Bread Matters, but a book I would recommend to buy.


White Bread Rolls

Ingredients
240ml warm water
1 egg, beaten
450g white bread flour
1tsp salt
2 tsp sugar
25g butter
1½ tsp easy blend yeast
For The Glaze
Egg yolk, beaten

Method

Grease 2 baking sheets and set aside

In a mixing bowl add the flour and salt, and then rub in the butter. Stir in the yeast and sugar. Make a well in the centre, and then add the egg and enough warm water, mixing to form a soft dough.

Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic. Shape the dough into a round, and then place it in a lightly oiled bowl. Cover and leave it to rise in a warm place until doubled in size.

Knock back the dough on a lightly floured surface, and then divide it into 8 or 10 equal portions. Roll each portion of dough into a round, oval or small cottage loaf shapes.

Place the rolls on the baking sheets, spacing them well apart, cover and leave to rise again for 20 –30 minutes or until doubled in size.

Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 220°C/fan 200°C/425°F/Gas mark 7. Brush the tops with the egg yolk and bake for 15 – 20 minutes, or until the rolls are lightly browned.

Transfer to a wire rack and cool. Serve warm or cold.

Butternut Squash Soup & Spelt Bread

Squashes and pumpkins are plentiful in food stores being autumn time in England. In my local store, I purchased two large organic squashes with an exact recipe in mind to use them. Last year I made Butternut Squash soup from Mary Berry’s recipe, which is an absolute winner in my household and one that I knew I’d be making again this year! This is a simple soup to make by cutting the squashes in half and drizzling over olive oil, salt and pepper placing them in a roasting tray and topping up with water to roast away in the oven until the flesh is soft and easy to scoop out leaving the skin behind. A few carrots, onion, celery, grated ginger and chopped rosemary, sweated off in butter and a good vegetable stock added. All the ingredients whizzed together to make a smooth silky soup. Pure comfort food in a bowl served with crusty warm homemade bread.

I baked for the first time a Spelt loaf to accompany the soup. WOW, this spelt bread has a wonderful nutty wheat taste with a nice texture. To think I was ‘knocking back’ dough with spelt flour that was a common ingredient of ancient civilisations! Spelt grains I believe have even been found Stone Age excavations! I used Doves Farm Organic spelt flour and a recipe from their web site.

If you’d like the recipes for the soup and/or bread the links are below.

Butternut Squash soup

Spelt Bread

Summer Pudding with Crème de Cassis

This is one of my favourite puddings and really it has no cooking involved. The fruits only need to be warmed with the sugar in a saucepan for them to mingle together, creating delicious juices to stain the bread beautiful claret red. This pudding could be served with clotted cream, ice cream, crème fraiche which would equally be gorgeous.

Summer Pudding with Crème de Cassis

Serves 4 –6

Ingredients
500g (1 lb 2 oz) mixed summer fruits, i.e. strawberries, raspberries, and redcurrants
125g (8 oz) caster sugar
Slices of day old bread, crusts removed
3 tbsp crème de Cassis

Method

You will need an 850 ml (1½ pint) pudding basin.

Put the fruit and sugar into a saucepan and gently heat on the stove until the sugar has melted and the fruits begin to bleed their juices. Stir the crème de Cassis gently into the fruits, leave the fruits in the saucepan to one side to cool a little.

Take slices of bread and cut into triangles and fit into the pudding basin leaving no gaps. Use a slotted spoon to add all the fruit into the lined basin and top up with some of the juices, (leaving a little to paint the outside if there are any white gaps showing the next day). Make a lid with the remaining bread making sure all the fruit is covered.

Place a tight fitting plate or saucer over the top and weigh it down with a weight or heavy object and leave in the fridge overnight to set.

Next day, take a large plate and place the pudding on and turn it out. If any white gaps of bread are showing paint over them with the remaining left over juice.

Glamorgan Sausages

I love to watch foodie programmes on the TV and I was tuned in one weekend to U.K.T.V. food. Imagine this setting; there was I feet up on the sofa with a lovely cup of tea in hand. On comes Sophie Grigson’s weekend food show and she was demonstrating making veggie sausages called Glamorgan sausages. I was really taken with this idea and I found the recipe on the U.K.T.V. food web site and knew I had to make these for lunch sometime.

Mission accomplished and now I can tell you all about these divine veggie sausages, you wouldn’t expect anything different from me now would you? I used a strong Cheddar cheese knowing I needed a good strong flavour; this is the base to the sausages after all. English mustard powder is a fantastic enhancer it brings out all the best qualities in the cheese so please don’t be afraid to use it for a more mellow mustard. The best way to mix all the ingredients was by hand; I like to feel the texture of the mixture to ensure not too much fluid is added to bind it all together. The messy part comes when you roll each sausage into the eggy glue and then into the breadcrumbs. I learnt the hard way here * giggle * only to use one hand and keep the other one clean just in case the phone rings!

I brought some freshly baked rolls from a little bakers shop to honour these magnificent beasts. Served with lashings of tomato ketchup and French fries I had one happy family on my hands. Even Mr R who isn’t a veggie person was perfectly happy munching away and thoroughly savouring them!

You will find the recipe link here.

Rosie’s Sun-blushed Tomato, Parmesan & Basil Loaf

The aroma of this bread loaf is divine, a little of the Mediterranean brought into your home. This is such a treat served with cheese, pickle a little ham and salad (Ploughman's lunch), or a slice smothered in butter and eaten warm from the oven (!)

I buy my sun-blushed tomatoes in a jar from the supermarket. Take out the quantity of Sun-blushed tomatoes required, drain and pat them dry on kitchen towelling before roughly chopping them.



Makes 1 loaf

Ingredients

300ml (½ pint) tepid water
60ml (2 fl oz) olive oil
500g (1lb 2 oz) strong white bread flour, plus extra for dusting
1½ tsp table salt
2 tsp caster sugar
2 tsp fast-action dried yeast
55g (2 oz) Parmesan cheese, finely grated
100g (3½ oz) Sun-blushed tomatoes, drained, patted dried and chopped
Handful of fresh Basil, stalks removed and roughly chopped when required

Method

1. Put the flour, salt, yeast, oil and tepid water into a bowl and mix gently by hand to bring them together. When all the flour has been mixed in, tip the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until the dough is smooth and elastic. Shape the dough into a round and place in an oiled bowl, cover and leave to rise in a warm place until doubled in size.

2. Knock back the dough on a lightly floured surface and add the Sun-blushed tomatoes, Parmesan cheese and basil. Knead until smooth and elastic and shape once again into a ball and press firmly down to flatten. Sprinkle a little flour over the top and from the middle make vertical slashes down the dough all the way round. Place on a lined baking tray, cover and leave to rise again in a warm place until doubled in size.

3. Preheat oven, 220°C /Fan oven 200°C/425°F/Gas mark 7. Bake the loaf for approx 25 minutes, (check your loaf to see if cooked as each oven is different) until golden brown, and then transfer to a wire rack to cool.