Grinding away

Some of the earliest breads must have been as rough as guts . . . and it all had to do with grinding the flour.

I've just found out that the teeth of ancient Egyptian workers often show far more wear-n-tear than could be expected for their age.

Why? Most probably because of the impurities in their bread - including stone chips from the crude grinding stones and desert dust that would have made its way into those ancient bakeries.

It's also more than likely that some unscrupulous bakers would have 'cut' their flour with a rang of 'additives'.

And given that wages were often paid in bread and beer, these ancients would have eaten lots of the stuff.

Only the truly wealthy and godly would have access to top-notch, leavened bread.

Pete’s wholemeal oat loaf

I’ve just cranked out a wholemeal oat loaf, using the following recipe:

• 325 mls tepid tap water ( should have measured it at 25C, but didn’t as I was in a rush)
• 1 tbspn of virgin olive oil
• 1 ½ tspns of salt
• 1 tbspn of white death (sugar)
• 2 1/2 cups of of wholemeal flour (@ 11 per cent protein rating)
• ½ cup of rolled oats
• 1 ½ tbspns of plain four (for added bulk)
• 1 tspn of polenta
• 1 tspn of bread improver
• 1 ½ tbspns of milk powder
• 1 ¾ tspns of dry yeast.

 Again, I left out the gluten flour (1 tbspn), and set Breville Bev on the wholegrain setting with a medium crust – which is a 3-hour, 30-minute cycle. 

The mixing left a somewhat sticky mass in the bottom of the pan before the loaf started to rise.

The end result? Another winner! Albeit with a flat-ish dome.

I think I shd be able to get the dome up by adding more flour . . . stay tuned!

As with my previous wholemeal loaves, this one has a good, open consistency and excellent crumb . . . The extra oats add ooomph to the ‘earthy’ flavour.

PS: I'm enjoying my days away from the newspaper office. I get to do a lot of things I've been taking a bit too much for granted these past few years (sorry, Faye!).

For tonight's dinner, I've rustled up a great chicken curry (using Jamie Oliver's TV recipe for lamb!), popped out to register the car, put on two loads of washing (and folded one) and completed a client case study. I'm just about to whip next door and cut my neighbour's lawn (he's also Pete). Then at 3pm, I'm cycling up to my fave Marrickville cafe to have coffee with my oldest mate, Paul (we've known each other almost 50 years).

And all the while another loaf is churning away inside Bev . . .

 

Wholemeal in one - plus oats

Tonight I varied my wholemeal loaf slightly, using this recipe:

* 325 mls tepid tap water ( should have measured it at 25C, but didn’t as I was in a rush)

* 1 tbspn of virgin olive oil

* 1 ½ tspns of salt

* 1 tbspn of white death (sugar)

* 3 cups of of wholemeal flour (@ 11 per cent protein rating)

* 1 tbspn of rolled oats

* 1 tspn of polenta

* 1 tspn of bread improver

* 1 ½ tbspns of milk powder

* 1 ¾ tspns of dry yeast

Again, I left out the gluten flour (1 tbspn), and set Breville Bev on the wholegrain setting with a medium crust – which is a 3-hour, 30-minute cycle.

The rise was steady throughout the baking process, and remained firm (unlike my previous wholemeal effort).

The end result? A magic, golden loaf with a good, crusty dome. Another winner!

This loaf had a good, open consistency and excellent crumb . . . light, with a slightly nutty and oaten flavour.

Roman pizzas?

I read somewhere some  years ago - not sure where, though - that the Roman armies marched on pizza. I accepted as near gospel that it made sense; a food that was easy to prepare and loaded with necessary pre-battle carbs.

Now, the Romans - along with just about everyone from the Fertile Crescent westwards - had been familiar with flat breads for thousands of years. But pizza as we know it? Not likely!

Tomato, a basic topping ingredient, wasn't introduced to Europe (from the New World; it's a native of South America) until the 1600s.

However, it's a fair bet the Romans - who were dab hands at all kinds of complex baking, including pastries and cakes - figured out that various seasonal veggie and fruit toppings and meats could be added to flat breads. They may well have baked these to 'weld' toppings to the bread.

If so, something fairly akin to modern-day pizza may have been part of the Roman diet from before the birth of Christ.

If you know anything more, I'd be delighted to hear from you.

Wholemeal in one

Tonight I cranked the following wholemeal loaf through Bev the Breville – and stuck to this recipe:

*  325 mls tepid tap water ( should have measured it at 25C, but didn’t as I was in a rush)

·   *  1 tbspn of virgin olive oil

·   * 1 ½ tspns of salt

·   * 1 tbspn of white death (sugar)

·   * 450 gms of wholemeal flour (@ 11 per cent protein rating)

·   * 1 tspn of bread improver

·   *  1 ½ tbspns of milk powder

·   * 1 ¾ tspns of dry yeast.

 I decided to leave out the gluten flour (1 tbspn), and set Bev on the wholegrain setting with a medium crust – which is a 3-hour, 30-minute cycle. 

Initially, I thought the rise was too high, as the loaf appeared to hit the observation window with an hour to go before completion.  However, as baking progressed, the loaf appeared to ‘shrink' slightly.

The end result? A magic, golden loaf with a good, crusty dome. A real winner for the kids’ lunches tomorrow!

FOOTNOTE: This loaf had a good, open consistency . . . light, with a slightly nutty flavour.

Flat out before the rise of bread

Ever wondered why unleavened breads were the ancient norm before more modern loaves rose to the occasion? 

In his book, All About Bread, Australian researcher David Oakenfull believes the answer lies in the behaviour of ancient wheat . . . It needed to be heated before the grain could be properly separated from its chaff. 

This heating destroyed the gluten needed to leaven a loaf. 

Gluten-forming proteins are located in wheat’s starchy endosperm. 

Yeast – the other thing needed for leavening – produces carbon dioxide under favourable conditions. 

So when gluten and yeast mix, they produce a spongy dough mass consisting of tiny gas bubbles encased in a gluten ‘skin’. 

But if you heat gluten-forming proteins before they’re introduced to the yeast, they become inelastic – and unable to rise, no matter how much yeast you introduce to the mix. 

Oakenfull says that at some point, though, the ancient Egyptians developed a wheat that could be threshed raw, thus opening the way for leavening. But it remained scarce for yonks. 

This new-fangled wheat didn’t become common among the Greeks until about 400BCE – even though the Greeks had been importing Egyptian grains for almost 300 years before that. 

But those ancient Egyptians liked something else likely to have played a vital role in leavening – beer! And it appears they often liked to mix B1 with B2 – brewing and baking – in the same facility. 

Although the air is full of wild yeast spore, Oakenfull believes it’s possible that some yeast spores (necessary for making beer) drifted onto some loaves that had been set aside before being baked. 

The result? Loaves that rose slightly, were somewhat lighter than flat breads and far yummier. 

Perhaps a pissed brewer/baker accidentally used beer instead of water in his dough-making, and the rise would have been explosive. 

As many ancient Egyptian workers were paid in bread and beer, such match making would have been a baking accident waiting to happen!

Loaf guardians of yore

I’ve been doing a bit more historical sleuthing into bread, and came across these old Anglo-Saxon references . . . 

It turns out that Anglo-Saxon lords were called hlaefward – or ‘loaf guardian’ – and their other halves (the ladies of their manors) were called hlaefdige – or ‘loaf kneader’. 

So  why did bread become so Euro-centric? 

Simple . . . After its ‘discovery’ in the ancient Middle East, and its spread and further development to Egypt, it was a hop-skip-and-a-jump to ancient Greece, before being adopted by the Romans. 

And as the Romans had perfected conquest and the concept of settled empire, it spread through the then-known western world like wildfire. 

To facilitate large-scale bread making, you needed several factors coming together: 

·         * An agricultural system that could ‘mass produce’ cereals rich in gluten (like wheat)

·         * Milling – the ability to grind grain into flour

·         * Leavening – a way of making dough light, tasty and more digestible

·         * A sophisticated baking system – capable of regularly cranking out multiple loaves 

In short, you needed a well-developed agrarian society with more than a modicum of industrial nous – otherwise known as ‘civilisation’. 

But what about the rest of the world? 

Rice, the staple grain of east Asia, and maize, the staple of the Americas, are unsuitable for bread making as we know it. 

That only left the Australian Aborigines (and I believe they were knocking out simple bush breads and seedcakes eons before the Neolithic farmers of the Middle East – see my reference to Aborigines elsewhere on my blog), but they appear not to have discovered the magic of leavening .

Another quick wholewheat wonder

I’ve just cranked another (!) wholewheat loaf through Breville Bev – this time using her extra large, classic white settings.  

Bryan and Ray, from TAS, were on the phone discussing a work project with me when the baking cycle ended. (That's how we got talking about home baking as well as virtualised computing environments and managed-services migration . . .)

Anyway, for this one you’ll need: 

·         * 1 ½ cups of tepid tap water

·         * 4 cups of wholewheat flour

·         * 2 tbspns of virgin olive oil

·         * 1 tspn of salt

·         * 2 tbspns of ‘white death’ – refined sugar for all you non-Aussies

·         * ¼ cup of milk powder

·         * 1 ½ tspns of dried yeast 

I set Bev on the Basic (white) cycle, with a medium crust. The process took three hours exactly. 

And guess what, this time?! This tasty little sucker rose perfectly! No collapsed dome! 

What’s more, the paddle came out still embedded in the loaf – which meant minimal tearing when I levered it out. 

The end result? A firm loaf, with a slightly moist texture and good consistency (not too crumby). 

The taste? I can only describe it as rich and malty (even for a wholewheat), which I put down to the combo of milk powder and oil. 

Recommend? You bet!

As always, I've taken some pix, so will load these asap . . .

Great reference book

This one's for my mates Ray and Bryan, at TAS Managed Services . . .

Guys . . . I can recommend this book:

Easy Bread Machine Baking (More Than 100 New Recipes For Sweet And Savory Loaves And Shaped Breads, by Shirley Ann Holmes (published by Firefly Books, ISBN - 1-55209-493-6).

Although it's North American-centric, I follow Shirley's recipes using metic cups and measures, and the results seem to work well.

Also . . . check out my mate Rich Balrdy's blog - http://forthedough.posterous.com/ - for more great recipes and pix!

Now . . . for a 'scratchie'!

I’ve just cranked another loaf through Bev the Breville – using scratchings (I need to restock my flours). It will be for the kids’ lunches tomorrow. 

It contains: 

·         * 1 ¼ cups of tepid tap water

·         * 1 ¼ cups of wholewheat flour

·         * 2 cups of white flour

·         * 2 tbspns of milk powder

·        *  1 tbspn of ‘white death’ (Aussie for sugar)

·         * 1 ¼ tspns of salt

·         * 1 ¼ tspns of dry yeast 

I set Bev on her wholegrain setting, with a medium crust (slightly more than three hours).

The result? Another great tasting loaf - albeit somewhat heavier than normal. The flavour is slightly nutty - and it toasts well! The texture is closer than normal, but (then again) I don't like bread with big holes anyway.

But again, the dome collapsed slightly. Given the heavy texture and the collapse, I think I should be adding slightly more yeast - which I'll do for my next loaf.

Stay tuned!

We might drive on the original side of the road, but we're now metric all the way!

Sorry, everyone . . . I forgot to mention that all measures I use are metric.

I'm not sure what difference it would make to follow all instructions in Imperial measure, but to be on the safe side, I've warned you!

Happy kneading-n-baking!

Softly, softly

I am finding that if I keep my fresh-baked loaves out overnight - cooling on a cake rack - the crust is quite soft in the morning. 

They become a lot like commercial breads in that sense.

My next trick will be to try chilling and freezing some of my recipes.

Stay tuned!

Rolled oats – Mk I

I took one look at my mate Rich’s scrummy oaten loaf, and thought I just had to give it a lash . . . 

Here’s the ingredient list: 

·        *  1 ¼ cups of tepid tap water

·         * 1 cup of rolled oats (I used some that can be microwaved quickly as a breakfast cereal)

·         * 2 ¼ cups of plain white flour

·         * 1 tbspn of raw sugar

·        *  1 tbspn of table marg

·         * 1 tspn of salt

·         * 1 ¼ tspns of dry yeast. 

I set Bev the Breville for a medium crust on the wholegrain cycle (more on this soon).

The dough seemed VERY sticky after the initial knead, and I thought I’d stuffed up somehow. Rich’s recipe is somewhat different (see: http://forthedough.posterous.com/).

However, it rose spectacularly before the baking cycle kicked in.

But towards the end, the crown of the loaf collapsed. It smelt great, sounded hollow as a good baked loaf should, but the top looked like it has been scalped by Sitting Bull!

My wife Faye thinks I possibly should have added more plain flour. Perhaps I should have set Bev on the slightly gentler white-loaf setting. Anyway, I won’t know until I try another loaf tomorrow – adjusting both the ingredients and machine setting.

Meanwhile, I'll use this loaf for tomorrow's lunches. 

The final result? Well, apart from being cosmetically challenged, everything about it is ideal . . . The crust is crusty, and the loaf is easy to cut (using an old bread knife). It's consistency is good, without being too open, and it's not crumbly.

It tastes rich and malty - no doubt thanks to the oats.

Oh well, looks can be deceiving. And as one of my railway modeling buddies puts it: If at first you don’t succeed  . . . use a bigger hammer (or in my case, more flour)!

Classic white - Mk II

I changed a few of the ingredients used in my classic white loaf (see elsewhere on this blog) - and came up with a slightly different result.

Here goes (and you'll need to follow these quantities exactly): 

·         * 1 ¼ cups of tap water water

·         * 3 cups of plain white flour  

·         * 1/4 cup of wholemeal flour

·        * 1 tbsp of table spread/marg

·         * ¾ tsp of salt

·         * 1 tbsp of honey

·         *  1 ¼ tsp of instant (dry) yeast 

Again, I use a “basic” bread setting – with a “medium crust” heat setting) on the machine, and used my rubber spatula to help throw loose flour into the dough ball as it was initially mixing.

 Again, the whole process took just on three hours.

  The result? A great-tasting, slightly sweeter loaf with good internal density . . . not too thick/not too airy, if that makes sense. The hole left by the mixing paddle was also minimal.

Interestingly, by the following morning, when I carved it for toast, the crust was very soft, but the loaf held its shape well. Unfortunately, the dome had ‘deflated’ (not sure why . . .), but this had no ill effects on my ability to carve the loaf.

As toast, it had a rich mellow taste that was somewhat sweeter than the white loaf made using sugar and oil.

I also suspect the ¼ cup of wholemeal flour added to the richer taste.

The next variant – Classic White Mk III – which is baking now has slightly less wholemeal flour (about 1/8 of a cup), and I have used raw sugar as the sweetening agent.

I’ll report on the outcome when it’s ready. So stay tuned!

Look Mum! No hands!

I’ve come to realise there are two types of amateur bread makers – serious aficionados who want to perfect the process into an artform with their bare hands, and peeps like me who want to produce hassle-free bread on a daily basis . . . sometimes twice a day. 

Sure . . . I love the look of a perfect, hand-made, oven-baked loaf as much as the next bread lover, but I can’t help thinking it all looks pretty much the same half way through the mastication process. 

And don’t forget (and I’ll keep stressing this as we go along) I can be as lazy as sin if I think there’s a shortcut to be had anywhere. Including bread making-n-baking.

 Think back to the first days of motoring . . . I think I would have stuck with a horse, bicycle or public transport. All that mixing of fuels, doing my own mechanics, changing my own wheels and hand starting. Now, that was for REAL enthusiasts. 

Would you swap your modern automatic transmission, electronic ignition, air conditioning, safety features, fuel efficiency and possible hybrid technology for the gut-busting, hand-cranked, open-air, horsehair-hard discomfort of yesteryear if you REALLY had a choice.

I think not! So I rest my case. 

For day-to-day loafing, bread machines rule! 

Lebanese ‘thank you’

It was late spring 1976, in Denison Street, Newtown . . .

The Lebanese family who’d bought the place next to our student doss house, invited us in one Saturday afternoon to thank us for a small deed we’d done (something to do with sorting out a local council matter for the head of the household).

We could never figure out how many there were, and how they were all related, but they seemed to range in age from eight to eighty. The young girl (the eight-year-old) knew the most English, and we’d communicate official business through her.

These guys were poor. I don’t mean in the monetary sense. They were Christians, fresh from the Lebanese mountains, and fresh from the troubles in that country. They lived an extremely happy – but very, very simple – family life. They were like wide-eyed children surrounded by ‘sophistication’ they had never experienced.

Anyway, the menfolk (I assume) had knocked up this small, crude wood-fired brick beehive oven in the middle of the broken-concrete backyard. And when we were ushered through, and fussed over, and motioned to upturned milk crates capped with splendidly coloured cushions, the women were already busy producing wafer-thin round breads.

They had these rolled around sticks, which they deftly flicked into the open door of the small oven, in which the unleavened dough would land flat – baking in a seeming instant.

I was fascinated. And hooked. I’d been making wholewheat ‘bread’ next door for some weeks, without success. Here was a new experience. And a new, simple taste sensation.

When I asked if I could have a go, I was swiftly – and firmly – told it was ‘women’s work’; my job – along with my mates – was to sit back, relax, eat bread and other Lebanese wonders, and down this potent, milky-white liquor.

I can still see that afternoon . . . Scrappy inner-city birds in the scraggy trees by the back wall, wood smoke from the fire wafting around us and mingling with our cigarette smoke, our collective laughing at things none of us quite understood, eating wonderfully simple bread, and getting delightfully pissed on rocket-fuel home brew.

Bread. What a leveler . . .

Life’s like a shit sandwich . . .

I can’t remember when I first heard this ‘saying’ – which makes me suspect it was during my wildly turbulent university days – but it goes like this . . .

Life is like a shit sandwich; the more bread you got, the less shit you eat.

But it don’t matter how much bread you got, cos’ you can’t quite get the foul taste outta your mouth.

Ever stopped to think about the importance we put on the word ‘bread’? When I was a teenager in the late 60s and early 70s, ‘bread’ was synonymous with money – and the amount of ‘dough’ you made determined how rough your ride through life would be.

My old man was the ‘bread winner’, in the traditional family way. (Never quite figured out how Mum got to be called ‘the Cheese’, but maybe that’s the way it was: bread and cheese seem to go together naturally.)

Bread: the staff of life, the basis of Christian ceremonial practice (and so many other religious ceremonies), a staple. Even the most basic prison food is pared back to those two essentials for maintaining life - bread and water.

The more I think about bread, the more complex it becomes!

Dreamtime breads

So who really did discover the art of making, then breaking, bread? 

Breads have been with us for thousands of years. We know, for instance, that the Babylonians and Mesopotamians were collecting and grinding wild grains as far back as the Neolithic period – or the final stages of the Stone Age (about 11,500-14,500 years ago).

It was only a (seemingly) short jump to cultivating these grains – and the earliest forms of wheat were among them.

The Egyptians caught on, and capitulated wheat and barley growing Big Time along the Nile to the point where bread became a dietary staple. The ancient Egyptians are also credited with knocking out the first leavened loaves . . . but more on this later.

Then came the Greeks, followed by the Romans – and both were already fighting over the virtues of white Vs brown types – and bread was on its way to becoming part-n-parcel of ongoing European life.

Although there are sample rolls and loaves in the British Museum said to date back more than 5000 years, I believe the earliest types of breads date way, way further back – into the Dreamtime.

Let’s assume the Australian Aborigines have inhabited the Great South Land for 40,000-60,000 years. If that’s the case – and with grinding stones having been dated older than 40,000 years – it’s a fair bet these guys were cranking out crude flat breads and seedcakes long before the Sumerians were a twinkle in the Middle East’s eye.

It seems quite possible that, independent of the accepted Euro-centric view of history, Australian Aborigines had perfected so-called ‘bush breads’ 30,000-45,000 years BEFORE those Fertile Crescent neoliths. And long before earlier Stone Agers even figured they could chew seeds for nutritional value.

Mind boggling, heh?

What’s more, it appears that little changed for the Aborigines until white settlement of Australia, and the introduction of pre-milled flour.

As the name implies, bush breads were produced using seasonal and regional wild seeds, roots, nuts and legumes – which were pounded to flour, mixed with water and shaped into flat ‘cakes’. These were then baked in hot coals.

High in protein and carbs, these bush breads and seedcakes would have formed an important part of Aboriginal diets for tribes scattered coast- to-coast and cape-to-cape across Terra Australis.

But it was tough, time-consuming work, relegated to women (the guys were engaged in the ‘hunter’ side of the ‘hunter-gatherer’ equation).

Native millet, spinifex seeds and wattle seed are known to have been used in these bush breads.

However, the advent of pre-milled flour made bread-making life so much easier for Aboriginal women that traditional bush varieties died out rapidly through most parts of Australia. Only some remote Central Australian Aborigines were still baking bush breads into the 1970s.

From bush breads, it was only a short jump to that other quintessentially Australian bread-like concoction, damper.

But I’ll cover that separately.

Holes in loaves

I'm not sure why . . . or whether it's universally the case . . . but I seem to leave far smaller holes in the bottoms of white and French loaves than either wholegrain or wholemeal loaves.

I have baked the last 3-4 whites on a darker-crust setting, and for some reason, the mixing paddle pops out with a drama.

At this rate, I am only winding up with one damaged slice instead of the 2-3 I encounter on heavier breads.

I'll keep you all posted!

Hair triggers

Having just mixed another white loaf (see recipe below), I've come to realise two ingredients have REAL hair triggers - salt and yeast.

Both work in tandem, the salt tending to complement yeast's boisterous nature, aiding it during proofing and baking.

Adding only a fraction more instant powdered yeast can cause considerably more expansion. More salt than recommended in a recipe seems to hold the loaf back. No salt at all leads to what I call "dome collapse".

You can "see-saw" your efforts - and the overall size of your loaves - by fractionally adjusting these ingredients one way or the other.

And I mean FRACTIONALLY!

Try it for yourself . . . and let me know your results.

Don't sweat it!

Hate to say it, guys, but I reckon you need to get your loaves out of the baking pan as soon as they're finished.

The reason?

I've found loaves can tend to sweat, affecting the crust, if I leave them in - even for a few minutes.

So, in my humble opinion, this business of timing loaves to be ready for you in the morning is something of a myth.

If anything, try to make a loaf immediately after dinner (on week nights), so it's ready to be popped just before you hit the sack . . . Or just after breakfast on the weekend.

I got the makin's ready about 8pm tonight, and the white loaf I'm baking should be ready about 11pm. Toooooo goooooood!!

I'd like to hear what you've experienced.

Tools of the trade

I might be slack, but when it comes to the tools of the baking trade, I believe you shouldn’t take short cuts. 

My tools are cheap, but I always use them to ensure consistency; no guessing (that way I can always replicate what I’ve done).

So here goes.

You’ll need:

* Cooking measuring cups (mine are cheap plastic jobbies)

·         * Cooking measuring spoons (I scored these at the supermarket)

·        * A weighing machine (mine’s a battery-powered electronic number that can weigh something as light as a cigarette!)

·         * A soft spatula (to work flour in the mixing bowl during those first few minutes)

·         * A hard-edged blade (to level off flour in the cups)

·        *  A cake rack – or two (these keep the hot, finished loaf off any hard surfaces so it doesn’t “sweat” as it cools

AnAnd to cut your loaves, I recommend an electric carving knife - ours is an ancient Sunbeam double-bladed thing. It cuts cleanly, producing very little crumb waste.  We haven't graduated to using a cutting guide yet, but that's next cab off the rank.

God! I can be slack!

Sorry, team . . . I promise I'll add picks of everything as I go . . . I'll probably do this next weekend.

Meanwhile, you'll just have to accept that I'm slack around the edges . . .

Classically white

Although this is a basic white loaf, slight tinkering with the ingredients can open up a plethora of possibilities. 

I’ve tried it several times now, without varying the amounts, and the results have been consistently tasty! 

For a large machine loaf (about 750gms) you’ll need the following – EXACTLY added in the following order: 

·        *  1 ¼ cups of water

·         * 3 ¼ cups of plain white flour

·        *  1 tbsp of virgin olive oil

·         * ¾ tsp of salt

·         * 1 tbsp of white sugar

·         * 2 tbsp of instant milk powder

·        *  1 ¼ tsp of instant (dry) yeast 

I use a “basic” bread setting – with a “medium crust” heat setting) on the machine, and use a rubber spatula to help throw loose flour into the dough ball as it’s mixing in the first two minutes (this ensures nothing sticks to the side of the pan by the time the kneading process is complete).

 The machine’s timer tells me the go-to-whoa process takes three hours.

 I also use EXACT measures . . .  proper measuring cups and spoons (which helps with the ‘science’ bit of the exercise). I can’t recommend using the right tools strongly enough.

 The result? A great-tasting, slightly sweet loaf that’s quite springy, but without too many internal holes. Really great sanga slabs! 

The loaf is big enough for me to make four lunches – and several pieces of toast. The crust is golden, but not too hard on top – and it’s easy to cut with an electric knife. 

I’ve also found the cursed kneading paddle doesn’t seem to tear too large a hole in the loaf when I bang it out of the pan.

I like baking this one late at night, just before tucking in, and leaving it to cool on a cake rack on the kitchen bench. It's awesome in the morning!

My next moves? To substitute bush honey for sugar . . . or raw sugar for white . . . marg for the olive oil . . . and to make the final ¼ cup of flour a wholemeal. I might even try leaving the oily bits out.

Stay tuned!