This could be a bad idea... but I am making bread. It is not a bad idea because I can't make bread, it is just that I am making up the recipe and going to blog as I go. More importantly I am not sure that my fresh yeast is still, well, fresh. It has been siting in the fridge for a while and it doesn't quite smell as yeasty as it it did last week. Still, soldier on...
The recipe actually uses one in Dough by Richard Bertinet only I didn't have the exact same flour types. I am making a loaf of walnut and hazelnut bread to accompany cheese for this evening's meal. The books Brown Bread recipe called for the following, my substitutions in brackets.
Brown Bread Dough
- 300g Strong Wholemeal Flour (Wessex Cobber Bread Flour)
- 200g Strong White Bread Flour (Country Grain Brown bread flour with malted wheat-grain)
- 10g yeast fresh if possible
- 10g salt
- 350g water
In the recipe for raisin, hazelnut and shallot bread the book adds a teaspoon of honey along with the gently fried shallots, raisins and hazelnuts. I didn't have enough shallots, I don't really like raisins in anything other than sweet dishes so I went ahead and added 80g of mixed hazelnuts and walnuts, both lightly broken up, as well as the honey. As I type the dough is supposedly rising or proving or whatever the correct terminology is. I am going to leave it for 30-40 minutes in the hot kitchen and see what happens.
[Photo Andrew Barrow]











