The bread the loaf has produced is certainly not my best, but does have potential – I was multi-tasking when making it and I may have used not-very-fine-sea-salt as the fine sea salt had been thrown away last week when we had a soy sauce disaster in the cupboard!

But that aside, the bread tastes delicous, makes crispy toast and a lovely cheese and onion sandwich.

The kneading technique for this loaf was devised by Dan Lepard, who, after working full time in commercial kitchens came to realise there wasn’t time for full 10 minute knead of all the different bread batches. He switched to short kneads spaced out and found it works just as well. I have to say I was very surprised when the loaf actually worked as I seemed to nearly pour the dough into the tin… that may also explain its slightly odd shape!

Anyway, it is a delicious loaf and one I’d make again.

Recipe & Instructions courtesey of with knife and fork

Note:
You must use oil not flour on the kneading surface and your hands. Something like vegetable oil is good.
The dough must be quite sticky and soft to start with. It will firm up when kneaded and as time progresses.

Steps:
* Once you have soft sticky dough leave it covered in the bowl for 10 minutes.
* Now oil your kneading surface and hands and tip the dough out.
* Knead for about 12 seconds by folding in the edges to the centre, a bit like shaping a round loaf, rotate the dough as you go.
* Flip the dough over, leave it on the surface and cover with a cloth. Wash out the bowl and then oil it lightly. Put the dough back in the bowl and cover.
* Leave for 10-15 minutes and then do another 12 second knead. You will notice the dough is already less sticky and firmer.
* Leave for 20 -30 mins and repeat the fast knead. You are aiming to have kneaded the dough 3 times in the first hour.
* Leave covered to rise until at least 50% larger but not more than double in size (kneading once per hour if it takes more than hour to increase in size).
* Tip out onto the oil surface and press the air out of the dough using the tips of your fingers so its square-ish in shape. Repeat the fast knead process (or fold in to thirds then rotate through 90, flatten again and fold into 3rds again).
* Shape the dough as required for the particular loaf you are making. Put it in a tin, or supported in a floured cloth in a bowl.
* Leave to rise until at least 50% larger and preferably almost double in size.
* Slash top and bake as per your recipe.

White Tin Loaf (based on Dan Lepard’s Quick White Loaf, p63 of the Handmade Loaf)
2lb loaf tin greased and floured or lined with baking parchment (no need to line the short ends just oil them).

Oven to be pre-heated to its maximum setting (R10/250C) and with a tray of water in the bottom to create steam.

Ingredients:
200g semi skimmed milk at room temp (Dan uses whole milk but semi skimmed seems to work fine)
150g water at room temp (remember 1g = 1ml but its easier to be accurate weighing fluids)
1 tsp fast action yeast (or 2 tsp fresh yeast crumbled)
200g plain white flour
300g strong white bread flour
1 ½ tsp fine sea salt

Method:
Mix the flours and salt together in a bowl.
Mix the water and milk together in a separate bowl and whisk in the yeast.
Add the liquid to the flour and mix with the fingers of one hand to a soft sticky rough dough. You may need to add a little more liquid do this a teaspoon at a time until you have a soft sticky dough.

Follow the kneading instructions above.

The first rise will probably take about an hour from the last knead.

To shape for a tin loaf, flatten the dough to a square about the same width as your tin. Roll the dough into a cylinder and press the seam firmly, fold under the two short ends and place in the tin seam side down.

Allow to rise (covered) to 1 ½ to 2 times volume i.e. to the top of the tin.

Slash the top of the loaf along it length and put it straight into the oven for 10 minutes at maximum temperature. After 10 minutes check how it’s browning and drop the temperature as follows (these baking guidelines are from the River Cottage Bread Book):

R6/200C if the crust is pale
R4/180C if crust is noticeably browning
R3/170C if crust is browning quickly

And cook for a further 40-50 minutes.

I usually check again part way through this time and either adjust temperature again or cover the top with foil if it’s brown enough. Also note that with a traditional gas oven (i.e. one without a fan) the top may brown far too quickly on the side near the heat at the initial temperature so you might want to start at a lower setting of R8/9 for the first 10 minutes. Adapt the setting for what you know about your oven and how things usually bake.

When it’s cooked turn it out of the tin and allow to cool.

Then when it’s cooled cut a big huge doorstop of a slice, toast it and slather with lashing of butter. Yum.

The recipe also works well with a mix of 50:50 wholemeal and white bread flours. You’ll probably need 2-3 tbps extra water.

After the buns were cooked I started on preparing a three course dinner as we had invited my parents around. Inspiration for the dinner came courtesy of Delicious Magazine.

For starters we had roasted parsnip and parmesan soup:

Followed by pancetta-wrapped salmon with saffron and herb rice, served with crushed new potatoes and purple sprouting broccoli:

The salmon was surprisingly easy to make despite having to skin the whole side of a fish! & it looked rather impressive before and after cooking:

Those sticking to Good Friday traditions didn’t eat the pancetta & I substituted all chicken stocks for vegetable stock.

And we finished with Nigella’s molten chocolate baby cakes:

I first made this a few weeks back but I didn’t blog about it after taking the photos. Tonight I’ve made another loaf so here is the recipe but as my loaf is in the oven the pictures are from last time.

Chilli Loaf

• 375g wholemeal strong flour
• 375g white strong flour
• 3 teaspoons salt
• 2-3 teaspoons chilli flakes (I used 2 & that provided a good heat without going OTT)
• 7g sachet of dry yeast

How To Do It

1. Mix all dry ingredients in a bowl
2. Add 450ml water (at room temperature)
3. Combine into dough & knead until elastic – around 5/10 minutes
4. Leave to rise in bowl (cover with damp cloth) for 2 hours
5. Knock back & shape into ‘tin’ shaped & pop in a floured tin
6. Leave to rise again for 45 minutes
7. Cook for 15 minutes at 230 ° c then for 20/25 minutes at 200 ° c until cooked
8. Leave to cool on rack

New things

I quite like fish, but don’t eat much of it – with the reason mostly being that Mr C doesn’t really like fishy fish. He enjoys the Tuna Burgers I make but has never really enjoyed any of the salmon dishes I have tried.

Today, however, with the help of a fish booklet that fell out of Delicious Magazine we may now have a salmon dish to add to our menu. The salmon fillet is coated in a Chermoula which was very tasty and served with a light accompaniment of couscous…

Ingredients (For 2)

• 2 salmon fillets
• 1 small garlic clove, chopped
• 1/2 tsp ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp ground coriander
• just less than 1/2 tsp paprika
• 1/2 tsp chopped red chili
• Pinch saffron strands
• 1/2 tbspn lemon juice
• small handful coriander & same of mint
• 1 tbspn olive oil
• small pinch salt

For the Couscous:

• 1 red pepper
• 175ml chicken stock
• 140g couscous
• 1 tbspn extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 knob of butter
• 1/2 lemon juice
• 1 tbspn chopped mint

How to Do It

1. Pre-heat oven to 200°c (fan)
2. Roast pepper for 30 mins & the pop in bag to cool – once cool remove skin seeds – chop finely
3. Once pepper is cooked tun oven up to 210°
4. Make the chermoula – put all chermoula ingredients into magimix & blend
5. Line baking tray with baking paper.
6. Season skin side of salmon with salt & pepper then spread with some chermoula.
7. Turn fillet over, season again and add chermoula.
8. Cover the baking tray with tin foil – seal tightly
9. Pop salmon in over & set timer for 12 minutes
10. As soon a s salmon goes in the oven, make sure the stock is in a pan & boiling. Take it off the heat, add the couscous & cover (keeping it off the heat).
11. After 5 mins, fluff up the couscous, add butter & olive oil and mix well – popping back on heat briefly to ensure its warm through.
12. Take off heat again and add lemon juice, roasted pepper, chopped mint and season well.
13. Serve couscous and salmon for a very tasty meal…

Speedy things

I’ve used the magimix to make cakes twice. The first time we weren’t impressed by it but yesterday, due to time constraints, I used it to make some cupcakes and they worked much better. I did take a photo but the camera isn’t brilliant so you’ll have to wait until next time ;)

Its Mr C’s birthday on Tuesday though so I will be baking again but I think I’ll stick to my Dualit hand mixer for that!

Today I made some more bread & the magimix comes with a dough hook so I thought it silly not to give it a go. The outcome was a tasty fresh loaf and hardly any mess. All the ingredients are thrown in the magimix, it forms a dough ball and then you leave it in situ for half an hour. After this time you need to pulse the magimix 3 or 4 times and effectively, knock the dough back. The mixture then gets transferred to a big bowl and left to rise for 2 hours in the airing cupboard.

After two hours the dough is tipped out, gently moulded into a rectangle and placed in a loaf tin. I left it settle and rise again for 10 minutes whilst the oven heated up to 200°c. It cooked for about 35 minutes and produced a really nice loaf…