Making Bread (1)

by Andrew Barrow, Posted Nov 30th 2005 @ 4:06PM

bread making 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]

Filed Under: Methods
Tags: baking, british isles