Basic White Loaf

I lost this post so many times when trying to write it.  No idea why as it would always happen after saving and closing.  Upon re-opening, the content had vanished.  It has been terribly frustrating trying to write this multiple times.  Hence, this is an even shorter post than intended. I just want this thing done and posted before it mysteriously disappears on me again.

So, anyway, January has become a bit of a yeasted month.  Lots of breads so far and there's a deliciously amazing yeasted treat coming next week to finish out the month.  I've been obsessing over bread ever since I obtained James Morton's Brilliant Bread with a Christmas Amazon voucher (thanks again, Nanny and Grandad!).  I've been after a second dedicated bread book for a while and this one had rave reviews (the only negative one was about the publisher, not the book itself).  I'm not surprised. Bread was James' thing when he was on Bake Off after all.  It's a fascinating and enjoyable read.  There are lots of good tips and hints to help you understand the process of making bread.  I highly recommend it.

This recipe is the first one in the book and the first one I tried.  It uses the absolute basics of bread ingredients: flour, yeast, salt and water.  That's it.  It's a very wet dough but the bread it produces is delicious!  Admittedly, it can be a little temperamental.  My first go at it turned out great!  I didn't get a chance to photograph it though as I was literally out the door with it whilst it was still cooling.  I figured I'd just make it again another day and take pictures.  Well, the next two attempts failed miserably.  The bread refused to hold its shape and so rather than a nice ball I ended up with a thick puddle.  I'm pretty sure I over-proved the dough so on my fourth attempt I stuck as close to the resting times as possible.  And finally, I had success again.  Huzzah!

It is delicious.  Nicer than homemade bread I've made before.  It's got a nice crumb and tastes amazing with butter or dipped in soup.  I'm trying to make bread every Friday I'm home for the Hubby's tea.  I'll have to try out some of the other recipes soon.

Recipe - adapted from Brilliant Bread

• 500g/17.5oz strong white flour
• 10g/0.35oz salt
• 7g/0.25g instant yeast
• 350ml/12fl.oz tepid water

1. Put the flour in a large bowl.  Add the salt on one side of the bowl and the yeast on the other so they do not touch (salt can kill yeast).  Rub both into the flour with your hands.   
2. Add the water and mix together until you form a wet dough.  Make sure all flour is incorporated into the dough.
3. Cover the bowl with clingfilm and leave to rest in a warm place for about 40 minutes.  It should have noticeably increased in size.  (If you can't decide whether it has grown or not, leave it a bit longer).
4. Keep a small bowl of water handy to wet your fingers.  After resting, wet fingers and slide under the dough and then fold it in half.  Rotate the bowl a quarter turn and do the same again.  Repeat until all the air is removed and the dough feels smooth.  
5. Cover once more and rest the dough until it has doubled in size (about 1 hour). 
6. Scrape the dough out onto a floured surface (a dough scraper is really useful here).  Shape into a ball by pinching one end and stretching the dough away from you before folding the stretched bit back into the middle. Turn the dough and repeat.  Keep going until the dough feels tighter.
7. Flip dough over then cradle it in your hands together underneath the dough.  Twist the dough slightly as you move your hands to start shaping into a ball. Repeat this action until you get a nice tight ball.
8. Place the dough on a heavily floured surface, cover and allow to prove for an hour (or until doubled in size).  Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 210C/410F/Gas Mark 6.5.
9. Once bread is ready, score a few shallow slashes into the top with a serrated knife.
10. Bake bread for at least 40 minutes, until the crust starts to turn a deep golden brown.
11. Allow to cool on a wire rack before serving. 

Bara Brith

After last year's distinct lack of activity I am trying to take advantage of the fact I work part time to get baking fitted in.  Kudos to you if you are someone who can juggle a full-time job with your baking.  I envy you.  I just can't do it.  Not yet anyway.  Working on it.  The point is I'm aiming to get something baked (and ideally up on the blog) each week.  This week I was in a bread mood.  Actually, I've been in a bit of a bread mood for a while now but this week was extra bread-y since I made two different loaves.  Sadly, you're not getting the one of them quite yet because after doing a really good job the first time, the subsequent attempts have been a bit...flat.  The dough won't hold it's shape so rises sideways rather than up.  I think I may be over-proving.

But the other bread turned out well!  Having been obsessing over Bake Off the last couple of weeks (applications for the next series were due last Sunday) I have found myself reading lots of articles about the show and past contestants.  In amongst those I stumbled across one on Beca, who made it to the semi-finals in Series 4.  This article was specifically about her yeasted tea-loaf she made during the Sweet Dough week (and received high praise from both Paul and Mary): a Welsh bara brith.  Literally meaning 'speckled bread' it is a sweet loaf filled with mixed fruit.  And being a tea-loaf, it's obviously got a healthy amount of tea in there too.  

Aside from the fact I wanted to try something new and different, what really motivated me to make bara brith this week was the bag of mixed fruit sitting in the cupboard, as I still have loads to use up from making mince pies and panetonne over Christmas.  Even after baking this I have leftovers so mixed fruit may crop up again in the next few posts.

I did end up making a slight tweak to the recipe: I used instant yeast, not fresh.  According to my newest bread book (which I will gush about properly when I post a recipe from it) there's not much difference between them.  Instant yeast is more convenient (and what I had in my cupboard).  I just halved the amount required.

I sent this along to the lovely ladies at Markinch with my mother-in-law on Monday.  They are always so nice about my baking and appreciate what I send.  They've been enjoying this over the week and plan to make toast with any leftovers that may have gone a little stale.
 

Recipe - adapted from Beca Lyne-Pirkis via Wales Online
Makes 1 x 2lb loaf 


Tea-Loaf:

• 450g/1lb strong white flour
• 7g/0.25oz salt
• 10g/0.35oz instant yeast
• 75g/2.5oz butter 
• 50g/1.75g brown sugar
• 2 tsp mixed spice
• 350g/12oz mixed dried fruit
• 1 egg
•  225ml/8fl.oz strong warm tea (I used two Twinnings Breakfast Tea teabags steeped for 5 minutes in 225ml boiling water, then let it cool slightly)

Sugar Syrup Glaze:

• 50g/1.75oz caster sugar
• 50ml/1.75fl.oz water 

1. Put the flour into a large bowl.  Add the salt on one side and the yeast on the other and rub into the flour to combine.
2. Rub in the butter using your fingers until the mixture looks like fine breadcrumbs.
3. Mix in the sugar, mixed spice and dried fruits until evenly distributed.
4. Add the egg and tea and bring everything together to form a dough.
5. Knead the dough until it is smooth (I stretch the dough away from me then fold it back on itself before giving it a quarter turn and repeating for about 10 minutes).
6. Place back in your bowl and cover with an oil piece of clingfilm.  Leave to rise in a warm place until it has doubled in size (about 1 hour).
7. Grease a 900g/lb loaf tin.
8. Knock back the dough, shape and fit into the loaf tin.  Cover with the oiled clingfilm and prove for another 30 minutes.  Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F/Gas Mark 6.
9. Once proved, remove the clingfilm from the dough and back in the oven for 20 minutes.
10. Cover the bara brith with foil and leave to bake for another 25-30 minutes.
11. Remove from the tin and allow to cool on a wire rack.
12. Make the sugar syrup by bringing the water and caster sugar to a boil in a small saucepan.
13. Cook the mixture until it takes on a syrupy consistency.
14. Remove and use a pastry loaf to cover the loaf in the glaze.
15. Allow to set and cool before serving.

Melon-Pan

I discovered melon-pan (literally melon bread) when I was in university after the Hubby introduced me to an anime called Yakitate! Japan.  It's all about bread and I loved it.  I'm a bit of an obsessive when it comes to Japanese culture and food is something that fascinates me.  (I really want to try some more Japanese sweet baking at some point).  Melon-pan is something that has popped up a number of times but until Yakitate! I didn't really understand what it was.  Put simply, it is a bread roll encased in a layer of sweet cookie dough.  The 'melon' part actually comes from the way it looks rather than tasting like melons.  That said, it is possible to get melon flavoured melon-pan.

Going back to this made me marvel at how much the Internet has changed in just a few years.  Once I finally knew what melon-pan was, I was determined to try it!  I scoured the Internet for a recipe that was in English (or could be translated reasonably well) and eventually found one.  The result was interesting.  Quite complicated and I distinctly remember the cookie dough being runny.  You dipped the bread in it.  It was weird (and also made it hard to get the melon pattern).  I don't think the bread cooked brilliantly but they were okay and the combination of the bread and the cookie dough is quite delicious.  Fast forward to now, when I was struck with nostalgia for melon-pan.  I no longer had my original recipe so had to find a new one.  My goodness there were loads!  No trawling like the first time.  The one I ended up going for is from Mari Nameshida's blog.  I have her cookbook and I like her stuff.  This recipe was really simple, though I made a couple of changes since I don't have dried milk powder.

The final result was lovely.  Not too sweet and the two parts went together nicely.  The bread was actually properly cooked, as was the cookie dough.  I wish I had been able to slice the top properly.  My pattern isn't very noticeable.  I also probably could have done with keeping them in the oven a little longer so the colour was a bit darker on top.  Ah well.  Will be making these again as the Hubby ate most of them before I had a chance.

Recipe - adapted from Mari's Tokyo Kitchen
Makes 4



Bread: 

• 70ml/fl.oz scalded milk, allowed to cool so it is just warm
• 1 tsp instant yeast
• 2 tbsp caster sugar
• 150g/oz strong white flour
• 1/2 large egg
• 30g/1oz butter
• Pinch of salt

Cookie dough:

• 100g/3.5oz plain flour
• 30g/1oz butter
• 2 tbsp caster sugar
• 1/2 large egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

1. Start with the bread dough.  Combine the scalded milk, instant yeast and sugar together in a cup and allow to sit for 10 minutes.
2. In a large bowl mix together the flour, egg and yeasted milk until combined.  (Make sure you get all the sugar out the milk cup).
3. Add the butter and salt and mix until it forms a sticky dough.
4. Turn the dough out onto a plate.  Stretch the dough away from yourself and then fold over on itself.  Give the plate a quarter turn and repeat.  Keep doing this for about 10 minutes until the dough becomes smooth and less sticky.
5. Shape into a smooth ball, cover with with clingfilm and allow to rise until doubled in size (about 30 minutes in a warm place).
6. Meanwhile make the cookie dough.  Cream the butter and sugar together in a bowl until it is smooth and pale.
7. Add the egg and vanilla extract and mix to combine.
8. Fold in the flour until the mixture comes together to form a dough.
9. Shape the dough into a cylinder and wrap in clingfilm.  Place in the fridge to chill for at least 30 minutes.
10. Once the bread dough has risen, take it out and give another knead in the same manner as before to knock the air out.  
11. Divide the dough into four pieces and roll each into a ball.  Cover with a tea towel and allow to rise for about 20 minutes (until noticeably bigger).
12. Cover a tray with greaseproof paper.
13. When dough has risen once more, remove the cookie dough from the fridge and divide into four.
14. Place a piece between two pieces of clingfilm and roll out into a thin round.  Place one of the bread rolls in the middle of the cookie dough, upside down, and then wrap the cookie dough around the bread.  Place right side up on the prepared tray.  Repeat for the other 3 rolls.
15. Use a sharp knife or dough slicer to draw a cross-hatch slit pattern in the top of the cookie dough and sprinkle each roll with sugar.
16. Cover with a tea towel and allow to rest for about 20 minutes.  Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 180ĔC/375°F/Gas Mark 4.
17. Bake the rolls for 10 minutes then turn the oven temperature down to 160°C/325°F/Gas Mark 2 and bake for another 15 minutes or so.
18. Allow to cool on a wire rack before eating.

Red, White and Blue Mini Panettones

Hello all, I hope you have had a nice Christmas or a general happy holidays if that's not your thing.  Mine was quite lovely except for the fact that I have been ill since I came off from school!  I was bed-ridden for 3 days, where I did nothing but watch movies on Netflix and sleep.  The Hubby did a wonderful job taking care of me (bringing me food and drinks and sitting with me for a bit) and has ended up being sick himself for his troubles.  It doesn't quite seem to be the same thing: he's really stuffed up whereas I was hurting and suffering an annoying and painful cough.  I've still got the latter.  Curse my weak lungs and the sensitivity to the weather.  It's worse this year though as it is far too easy for me to get out of breath.  I was almost done in by a walk to the train station yesterday (which is 3 minutes away).  

But enough about that.  As I was saying, my Christmas has been lovely.  There were some lovely presents under my  beautiful (if I say so myself since I made all the decorations) Christmas tree and it was nice having dinner with the Dunion side of the Hubby's family, as well as skyping mine.  I even spent a chunk of the day making mince pies because the mother-in-law had requested them.  I made a batch for taking to Christmas dinner and then sent another batch along to Falkirk with the in-laws on Boxing Day when they visited the McGinlay side of the family.  The Hubby and I didn't go.  We took the day to recover.

Now with the Dunion side of the family, one of the siblings hosts Christmas Dinner.  This year it was the Hubby's Aunt Linda.  We all go for our tea and then we all exchange presents with each other.  We didn't go last year since we were down in England visiting my family.  I try and make my presents for extended family.  The year before last it was orange shortbread.  This year, I made panettone since the Dunion side has Italian roots.

I'll say right off the bat, this is not a proper, traditional panettone.  You can probably see that from the photos since they are quite tall and skinny panettone and baked in tin cans.  True panettone would also require a sourdough starter, which I do not have the patience to cultivate or maintain, and several days for proving.  Admittedly, I did have that latter bit but it was slightly scuppered by the being ill thing.  Hence they are not as beautifully fluffy as a real panettone should be.  Finally, I'm not using the most traditional of ingredients.  No mixed fruit or Fiori di Sicilia.  This has cranberries, blueberries, white chocolate and candied peel.  Hence the red, white and blue in the title.  That being said, these are still very yummy and went down well as gifts.

I wanted the panettone to be as fresh as possible so I made them on Christmas Eve.  I just about managed to stay upright whilst doing it.  It gave me a fair bit of trouble.  The dough is ridiculously sticky for a start.  However, I may have added slightly more egg that I was meant to because a bag of sugar fell out the cupboard and upended my jug of beaten egg onto the floor.  There was still some left and I just mixed up 3 new eggs.  The recipe said it is meant to be sticky, but I'm also supposed to be able to knead it into a ball, which was a bit of a hassle and very messy.   It also did not want to rise so I was constantly worried that I had killed the yeast.  I ended up leaving it whilst we went for Christmas Eve tea and board games with the Hubby's parents, sister and sister's boyfriend.  I was praying they had risen by the time I got back so I could cook them before bed.  Otherwise I was going to have to start over again.  I stole eggs from my mother-in-law's kitchen just in case.   Thankfully though, I came home and they had risen.  I'd put them in the oven since I figured it would be a bit warmer in there and that seemed to do the trick.  Baking took forever as I was wanting that golden brown finish on the top and it was pretty late by the time I finally got to go to bed but the blasted things were done.  I would just need to spruce them up and package them the next morning, as well as grab a few photos (what a shame most of them blurred because I forgot to correct the ISO...).

Recipe - adapted from Good Food: Delicious Gifts

Makes 5 


There is a lot of waiting around and a lot of rising to be done with these.  At the least add in 2.5 hours for rising time but may take longer if it is cold.  Mine did.  Along with the prep and cooking time, you're looking at at least 4 hours from start to finish.

Panettone:

•  500g/1lb 2oz plain flour
• 14g/0.5oz easy blend, dried yeast
• 1 tsp salt
• 100g/3.5oz golden caster sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 200ml/7fl.oz milk
• 200g/7oz butter
• 75g/3oz dried cranberries
• 75g/3oz dried blueberries
• 100g/3.5oz white chocolate chips
• 100g/3.5oz mixed candied peel

To finish:

• 1 egg
• 2 tbsp flaked almonds

1. In a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook, mix the flour, yeast and salt together briefly before adding the sugar and mixing again.
2. Heat the milk in a saucepan until it is hand hot.
3. Beat the eggs with vanilla extract and add to the dry ingredients along with the warmed milk.  Mix to make a soft, sticky dough.
4. Work the dough for a few minutes in the mixer then remove the hook and allow to rest until it has doubled in size (about 1 hour but maybe more if it is cold).
5. Put the hook back in, add the butter to the dough in small pieces and mix to incorporate.  Leave to rise for another hour.
6. Add the cranberries, blueberries, white chocolate chips and mixed peel to the dough and mix in until just incorporated.
7. Grease the bottom of 5 clean 400g soup tins and add a circle of baking parchment.  Cut a strip of baking parchment that is just over double the height of the tin.  Fold in half and place inside the tin to form a collar.  Make sure the parchment sticks out over the top of the tin.
8. Tip the dough out onto a floured surface and knead quickly into a ball (the dough is very sticky so this is quite tricky and messy, I recommend using a dough cutter to help).  Divide the ball into 5 pieces and put one in each of the tins.  Leave to rise for about 30 minutes.
9. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4.
10. Beat the egg and brush over the tops of the panettones and sprinkle with the flaked almonds.
11. Bake for about 50 minutes or until the panettones are a deep golden colour.  
12. Cool in the tins on a wire rack.  You should then be able to remove the parchment collar and decorate your tins with a bit of wrapping paper to present as a gift.

Great British Bake Along: Povitica

This was the last thing I was able to do as part of my bake along challenge before I really started to struggle with finding time to do it.  As I have said before, I do hope to be able to go back to the ones I missed/failed miserably at *cough*custard tart*cough*, however, it's dependent on time and the fact I am likely to be distracted with seasonal baking (I have so many pumpkin bakes in mind, it is a bit ridiculous).  I may be able to combine a few challenges with said seasonal baking but we shall see.  So without further ado, let's get on with this Bake Along (for the time being).

Week 8 on the GBBO was Advanced Dough, where the bakers were working with enriched dough.  That means there is a higher percentage of fats, eggs, milk and sugars in the dough, usually resulting in something much richer and sweeter than your average dough.  Deviating from my usual process of attempting the signature challenge, I decided to take on the technical challenge for the week: povitica.  I had never heard of it before the episode but when I saw it, I thought it just looked so cool.  I really wanted to try it as I thought it would be the most challenging.  I also thought it would also make a nice bake to take into work to share.  Sealing the deal was the fact that I had been given the book for the series for my birthday by my brothers, so I had Paul Hollywood's recipe all ready and waiting for me to try.  Obviously, having the full recipe means I did not have as much trouble with this as the bakers did.  That's not to say I did not encounter problems, but I wasn't having to guess anything.  I will admit though, I tampered with the recipe ever so slightly.  I changed out some of the walnuts in the filling recipe for hazelnuts.  I was hoping for a more Nutella like flavour.

I had two issues when making this recipe; one was minor and one was major.  The minor issue came from the fact that the recipe requires a stand mixer with a dough hook to do all the hard work of making the dough.  I do not own such a thing for I can not afford it and even if I could, I have no where that I could keep it.  My lovely yellow kitchen is, unfortunately, quite small and we already struggle to store things (which is actually a problem with our flat in general).  It makes me a bit sad when things rely on mixers in recipes.  It makes things difficult for those of us who still have to do things the old fashioned way!  So I kinda had to muddle through making the dough by hand.  I mixed with a spoon and then kneaded the dough myself for a long time until I got the texture I assumed I was aiming for.

The major issue was the stretching.  You have to stretch the dough by hand after rolling it out to double the size!  It is not an easy feat.  Initially I did not use a bed sheet and had clingfilm covering my partially opened table instead.  Disaster.  The table wasn't big enough and everything stuck to itself.  After I extended the table further I found I could not rotate my dough to fit without it falling to pieces.  So I had a brief strop, where I scrunched it up and threw it down on the table, then went and got a bed sheet and started over.  I was concerned I would somehow ruin the dough by doing this but it didn't seem to have an adverse effect.  The sheet does make things easier but I still struggled with the stretching.  The blasted thing just kept tearing, a massive hole formed in the middle and I was unable to get it to the desired size.  So in the end I got it as big as I could, patched the hole and just went with what I had.  When writing up the recipe, I realised I had been using my hands the wrong way up, so that probably contributed to my problems somewhat but oh well, I know for next time.

Putting on the filling did not prove to be too much of a problem, and neither did rolling and shaping the loaf.  Really, after the stretching mess, everything else was pretty simple and I did end up with a pretty good looking povitica.  I was so pleased when I cut into it and could see all the spirals and that it was cooked all the way through, unlike most of the poor bakers' on GBBO.  I will say, once I tried it, it wasn't really my cup of tea.  But I'm fussy.  You all know that by now.  The lovely ladies I work with all seemed to enjoy it as once again it was eaten up rather fast.

Recipe - adapted from Great British Bake Off: Big Book of Baking


Dough:

• 300g/10oz plain flour
• 40g/1.5oz caster sugar
• 1.5 tsp salt
• 2 tsp fast action dried yeast
• 30g/1oz melted butter
• 1 large egg
• 150ml/5.5fl.oz lukewarm milk
• 1/2 vanilla pod

Filling:

• 60g/2oz butter
• 4 tbsp milk
• 200g/7oz hazelnuts
• 80g/3oz walnut pieces
• 100g/3.5oz caster sugar
• 2 tbsp cocoa powder
• 1/2 vanilla pod
• 1 egg yolk 

Assembly:

• 15g/0.5oz melted butter
• 1 egg white, beaten
• 100g/3.5oz icing sugar
• Cold water 

1. Put the flour and sugar into a large bowl.  Add the salt to one side and the dried yeast to the other.
2. Add in the butter, egg and milk, along with the seeds scraped from the inside of the vanilla pod.
3. Mix them the ingredients together until they start to form a dough, then knead with your hands until it is soft, smooth and stretchy.  (Much easier to do if you have a mixer fitted with a dough hook I'm sure.  Alas, I had to do it with a wooden spoon and my hands).
4. Give the bowl a light coating of oil, shape the dough into a ball and place inside.  Cover with clingfilm and leave to rise in a warm place for about an hour, until the dough has doubled in size.
5. Whilst you wait, make the filling by putting the butter and milk into a small saucepan and melting gently together over a low heat.  Remove the butter from the heat.
6. In a food processor, combine the cocoa powder, sugar, walnuts, hazelnuts and seeds scraped from the vanilla pod.  Blitz into a sandy powder.  Some nut chunks are okay as it will add a nice texture.
7. Add the egg yolk and milk/butter mixture and pulse to combine.  Set aside.
8. Spread a clean bed sheet over a large work surface or table and dust with flour.
9. Roll out your dough into a rectangle that measures 30x50cm/12x19.5inches on the bed sheet.
10. Brush the surface of the dough with the melted butter.
11. Dust your hands with flour then ease them under the dough and carefully start stretching it out from the centre. (Paul Hollywood recommends doing this with your palms facing down so you are using the top of your hands).  It will become very thin and translucent (you should be able to see the sheet through it).  You are aiming for your rectangle to measure 60x100cm/24x39inches.
12. Spread the filling gently over the dough, taking care not to tear it. (If necessary, add a little warm milk to the mixture to loosen it up if it is difficult to spread).  Cover the dough as evenly as possible.
13. Prepare a 1kg loaf tin by greasing it with butter.
14. Starting at one long edge of the dough, gently roll over about an inch of dough to start your roll, then carefully lift the sheet to slowly roll the dough up tightly like a Swiss roll.
15. Carefully pick up the rolled dough and ease one end into the bottom corner of the prepared loaf tin.
16. Wrap the roll around the base of the tin in a U shape and then continue to lay the roll on top of itself to form a second U shape.
17. Place the tin inside a large plastic bag, seal and leave to prove for about an hour.  
18. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4.
19. Remove the tin from the plastic bag and give the top of the dough an egg wash with the beaten egg white.
20. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes before turning down the oven temperature to 150°C/300°F/Gas Mark 2 and baking for another 45 minutes. (Cover the top with foil if it starts to burn).
21.  Allow the loaf to cool in the tin for 30 minutes after removing from the oven.  Then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
22. When the loaf is completely cold, mix the icing sugar with a small amount of water to make a runny icing.  Drizzle the icing over the top of the loaf and leave to set.

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