Recipe 32: Seeded Bread

I know I say this with most breads, but I was generally excited to make this one, I was hoping it would come out as yummy when you buy a sandwich at the shops, love that bread but it was a complete disaster.

Firstly, I had to buy so many types of seeds which included sunflower, poppy, pumpkin, sesame, linseed and millet seeds, some of them not being the easiest to find. This bread baking is getting expensive! It's fine when your baking your normal average loaf but add a bit of favour and the price goes up!

In this recipe, there are 3 different flours used, strong white, wholemeal and the dreaded Rye flour that always manages to completely ruin my bread, I just can't get along with it, I have no idea where I am going wrong, following the recipe religiously and it just comes out like a slab of concrete!

I honestly thought this recipe would be okay as it wasn't completely Rye flour on it's own, it had other flours to help it on a bit but it truly ruins everything. It did rise a little but the dough goes so bad you can't even knock any air out of it!

The process was the same as all other breads, the mixing, kneading, rising, knocking and proving and in between time putting the seed mix into the dough, which I also make an error on, instead of 20g of Poppy Seeds, I put 80g, major fail on my behalf. I was looking at the picture in the book, thinking I can't even see the poppy seeds then realised my mistake, I got confused looking at the others as they were all mainly 80g, oops!

It's such a shame, I think when I've done all the recipes I will come back to this one and maybe try without the Rye flour as I really wanted to make Seeded Bread! I'm sorry I've basically just had a big moan off about how much I hate using this kind of flour but it's true, it never has worked for me and I follow the recipe to the letter so if any one has any tips of working with Rye Flour or where you think I am going wrong, please let me know! Any helpful hints would be greatly welcomed no matter how big or small!

Look how awful it looks!

Anyway, the next recipe looks yummy, look out for it soon! No baking this weekend as I'll be in Disneyland Paris!

Recipe 31: Coriander, Olive and Onion Bread

I loved this bread, it was a nice one to make and what a lovely combo of favours!

So we begin with the usual mixing of the ingredients, I tried this using the scraper again and I really do like using it but I'm having trouble picking up all the flour, this way though should be easier but towards the end I usually end up using my hands which works out anyway as I need to take it out the bowl for kneading anyway.

Kneading is getting easier, apparently I make it look effortless too (my mum watched me for a little while, haha) but it is still harder than it looks, but the results are getting better so I take it there must be some muscles strengthen in there! Then time to watch the Bahrain Grand Prix, the perfect amount of time to leave the dough to rise.

Well, that was an exciting race! Anyway, just before having a sneak peak at the dough, it was time to sort the ingredients to favour this bread. A handful of fresh chopped coriander, one onion finely chopped and roughly chopped black pitted olives.

Then tip the dough out of the bowl and then knead all the ingredients back into the dough, you don't have to knead for a full on 1o minutes though, just enough for the favours to be evenly spread. It smelt lovely!

After, you then place back into the bowl to rise again, the book said only 30 minutes but I left mine a little longer, not for any particular reason – just busy!

The next part was to shape the dough, firstly tap it into a rough rectangle and then roll up into a sausage, a bit easier said than done as my dough kept getting stuck onto the surface! But it got there in the end. Time to leave for another hour, this time to prove.

Whilst waiting, I actioned the next part of the recipe – to make a little seed mix for the top of the bread, the seeds were: sesame seeds, nigella seeds and black cumin seeds.

After an hour, when the dough is nice and proved, it's nearly time to finally put it in the oven to bake! But firstly, the seed mix! Brush some warm water over the dough and sprinkle the seeds all over the bread and then time to put it the oven for around half an hour.

The oven really annoyed me today as this was such a lovely bake but one side came out golden brown and the other side came out quite pale, silly oven not giving me an even bake! But either way the result was amazing, I'm not even a fan of olives but I loved it, and onion in bread is amazing, I can't wait to try loads of different of my own favours when I finish the book and I get the feeling onion with some other ingredients might be one of my first to try!

Reviews? As I said above, I don't like olives but I loved this and the bread was so light and airy, was very happy with it! I chopped the loaf in half for the 2 olive lovers I know, my aunt and Gina so I'm sure they will give me an honest review!  

Recipe 30: Garlic Bread

A nice one for the 30th recipe because I was so excited to finally get to bake this! I love garlic bread, well I think about everyone does! But this recipe was a lot different to what I expected.

It starts off with the usual mixing around of ingredients, I tried it a little different by not using my hands to mix it round but with a dough scraper instead. I think this work the water into the mixture better because when I started to knead the dough, it certainly felt much more different than usual! I'm not sure how to describe it but it seemed to stretch more – I'm going to try it again this way in the next recipe and hopefully make a better description then I have at the moment!

Whilst waiting for the bread to rise, the garlic needed roasting. This recipe required three bulbs of garlic, three! I couldn't believe it! Anyway, with a dash of olive oil and a sprinkle of caster sugar I roasted the cloves for around 20 minutes until golden brown.

I cannot believe how pretty this dough looked when I uncovered it, what a surprise! I left the dough much longer than I usually do, I think it was nearly coming up to 3 hours, any longer than I would have been worried that it might fall back down.

By now, the garlic is now nice and cool and onto the next part which confused me as the recipe said to knead the garlic into the dough, which was fun but I found it odd saying to knead it again? But in theory I think I was just knocking out the air as I rolled the garlic in it and just the choice of wording in the book confused me.

Once you've 'kneaded' the garlic into the dough, I had to divide the mixture into 2 and stretch them both into oblong shapes and then leave to prove for an hour, I usually leave over an hour if can though, it's been working out better!

Then time to bake for 25 minutes after a sprinkle of oregano and a dash of olive oil! The smell of garlic and bread baking together is a wonderful mix! And wow, did it make me feel hungry! But what did it taste like? I think I would have liked it better if the garlic was more finally chopped as you had to put the whole cloves in, they got a bit squished when kneading it but because the chucks were so big some parts tasted of garlic and then other parts just tasted like normal bread. I would like to try it again with finely chopped garlic next time!

Recipe 29: Gorgonzola, Pear and Walnut bakes

So what a mix of favours! I'm not a big cheese fan so I have to say, I have no idea what Gorgonzola was! The epic search through Tesco's to try and find it when it happened to be in front of me the whole time. For other non cheese eaters, Gorgonzola is basically the Italian's version of Stilton.

Again, this was such a fun bread to bake! It was very similar to the Breakfast Rolls, just different ingredients obviously!

It begins the usual way with mixing all the ingredients by hand until it has formed into a rough dough – I have to say I think mine needed a little more water in it but I was too scared in case it became soggy!

Then comes my favourite part (sigh) the kneading process! It says you can do it for 5-10 minutes but there is no getting out of it, you have to do a solid 10 minutes and that's that! There is no running from it, a full 10 minutes! And of course, leave to rise. This one I left for just over 2 hours I believe!

I really liked the technique of the past 2 recipes so far, I find that it makes my bread a lot more fluffy and bakery like! When you take the dough out of the bowl, you roll it with a rolling pin, so no knocking the air out if with your hands as the rolling pin will pretty much do this and it works a lot better for me. I'm not sure if that means I haven't been knocking out the air good enough in my previous attempts but I will have to wait for the next hand knocking one!

Once you get the dough into a rectangle shape (or kinda rectangle like mine!) you need crumble the cheese and place all over the bread, same with the crushed walnuts!

The next part is fun, rolling it all up into a sausage, you worry that the nuts are going to break through but they won't! Trust in your dough! When cutting the sausage shape into 2cm pieces, I cut the first one and then measure it up by that. The bits of dough that were right at the end were odd shapes though due to my poorly shaped rectangle.

Then place on a baking tray and leave for 30 minutes, another thing that I like about these rolls recipes, you don't have to leave them to prove for hours! And then just before putting them in the oven, get your peeled pear pieces and stick them on top, pushing them into the dough.

After this, bake them for 15-20 minutes and smell the lovely scent of bread, cheese, walnuts and pears baking across the house! It smelt amazing!

Reviews? But did they taste amazing? My Dad had one which I was worried about as he is allergic to this type of cheese but he wanted one! He liked them and luckily, no allergic reaction! My mum tried one too and both plates were cleared! AJ is having some tomorrow and being giving out to various people too, wonder what they will think!

Next weekend I'm going on a bread course for day, very excited! I hope all this practice makes me look good but I doubt it!

94 Recipes to go by the way, not bad! But as the book goes on, the bakes take longer, the thought of Sourdough and pastries scare me!

Recipe 28: Breakfast Rolls

I was very excited to make these, they looked so tasty and interesting to bake!

The recipes starts off the same, with the mixing and kneading and this time, I kneaded like I have never before and with the end result it was definitely worth it! And yes, very hard work for the arms but now I've got to make sure I do this every time!

Oh, I should mention what makes this a breakfast roll (though I'm sure its obvious!) eggs that gets mixed in with the bread ingredients and then mushrooms, tomato paste and then bacon which like the previous flatbreads you cooked the bacon a little to give it a head start and then the rest gets cooked when all of it goes in the oven!

With this recipe, the dough doesn't need to be knocked out but instead you have to roll it out into a rectangle, which pretty much does this job anyway and I have to say doing it this way makes the dough much more easy to control and comes out all smooth and lovely!

Once it's rolled into a nice rectangle shape, spread the tomato paste across, add the bacon and the mushroom. Though I only added the mushroom to some of it as not everyone likes them!

I got confused with the next part (though I'm sure it was easy to understand really) with how to roll it, I know that sounds silly but I've never made a swiss roll or anything like that before so I was worried I rolled it around the wrong way but it turned out to be the right way in the end, yes! :)

When you have very long roll cut them into equal pieces (or not so equal like mine!), I was concerned that I rolled them out to thin at first but then when left to prove (and a bit of faith, trust and pixie dust!) they went to a much healthier looking size!

Before placing them in the oven, some more breakfast elements to add – beat an egg and brush oven the rolls. Once baked in the oven they baked into even larger rolls and I was very impressed! They looked amazing!

Reviews? If I do say so myself, I think this was the best bread I've made to date, it looked almost shop worthy! And it tasted yummy too, maybe a little too much tomato for me but everyone else liked it. I have 2 little parcels with 2 rolls each going out tomorrow (not in the post by hand, haha) so will have to see what they think too! Kneading it with LOTS of effort is the way forward though! 

Recipe 27: Flatbread with Bacon and Epoisse Cheese

Well, nearly at the 30 mark and means less than 100 recipes to go, that sounds encouraging!

A fairly easy bread to make with a yummy result! I'm going to spoil this entry now by giving you the ending – but it's basically a normal flatbread and then add cheese and bacon and put it in the oven, so as said easy bread with a yummy result!

So I got up early on a Bank Holiday (8am, two hours lay in then I usually get though!) to make this recipe for breakfast!

It begins with the usual mixing all the ingredients with your hands until it forms a rough dough. Sometimes I think that my dough should be more wetter but then I worry I might spoil the whole thing – maybe one bake I will risk it and try it!

Once the ingredients is all mixed then it's time to knead for 10 minutes, it's getting better, still not there but I still need to improve loads! While the dough is left to rise, I cooked the rashes of bacon not completely as they go in the oven later on and leave them to cool!

When the dough is ready, time to divide the mixture into two equal pieces and and roll out into a ball and bake it on a frying pan for around 5 minutes each side. With one of the breads I felt I over baked it and the other one I didn't bake for as long because after this process they then go in the oven for another 10 minutes so then it kinda turned out one was over baked and one was under baked, couldn't win with this one! Eek!

When they both ready, time to put them on a baking tray, sprinkle the cheese over them and add 3 rashes of bacon to each bread and then in the oven for around 10 minutes or until the cheese is making a nice bubble!

Reviews? So my mum and dad had these for breakfast and they pretty much didn't have anything else to eat till dinnertime so nice and filling! They said it tasted nice too, I tried a little and it was so rich, I wouldn't of been able to eat the whole thing!

The next recipe is breakfast rolls so excited to make this!!