Easter bunnies

With Easter just around the corner, I thought I’d have a lash at my first practice batch of Easter buns. While they should be “crossed”, my mob hates that white stuff and picks it off, so my efforts bear no relevance to any Christian festival.

But what they lack in religious overtones, they more than make up for in taste.

You’ll need the following:

* 350mls of tepid tap water

* 1 egg yolk – I used a 70gm free-range one

* 2 tbspns of olive oil

* 1 tspn of salt

* 2 tbspns of white sugar

* 600 gms of plain flour

* 1 tbspn of ground cinnamon

* 1 tbspn of ground all-spice

* 3 tbspns of milk powder

* 1 tspn of improver

* 1 ½ cups of mixed sultanas and orange rind (with the far majority being "tarnies")

* 2 ¼ tspns of dry yeast

As always, I popped the water and oil in the pan first. I then lightly beat the egg and added it.

I mixed all dry ingredients – including the tarnies and yeast – and added these to the pan.

I set Bev on her “dough” cycle, and settled back to do the rest of the prep work – cutting two pieces of oven-bake paper to fit the baking trays I used.

Once the dough-making cycle was finished, I turned the mass out on a lightly floured board and divided it into 12 roughly equal amounts, which I then rolled into balls and popped onto the trays. I covered these with a dry tea towel and allowed them to continue proofing on the warm kitchen bench for about 45 minutes . . . by which time, they’d doubled again in size.

I pre-heated the oven to 190 degrees C and baked both trays for 20 minutes.

The result? Well, let’s just say we won’t be buying any commercial bunnies this year! These samples were rich, moist, sweet and seemingly loaded with fruit.

For a trial run, they were faultless in everything but shape. I’ll perfect this next round.

PS: Only one drama . . . the following morning they seemed a tad dry. Not sure why, either. However, a short burst (about 20 seconds) in the microwave seemed to bring them back to their previous evening’s life. None of the taste, however, was lost.

Loafing with the French

French loaves – unlike their namesakes – are far less fussy and complicated than others. They use less sugar and oil, but spend more time proofing. They also deliver crustier crusts – or should.

You’ll find this almost a "trainer-wheel" recipe because of its simplicity.

You’ll need:

* 310mls of tepid tap water

* 2 tspns of olive oil

* 1 ½ tspns of salt

* 2 tspns of sugar – I used raw sugar for this effort

* 500 gms of plain flour

* 1 tspn of improver

* 1 ¼ tspns of dry yeast

* Plenty of time to cool your heels – because of its longer proofing stage, this little baby will bring you some 3 ½ hours closer to your grave.

As always, I added the water and oil to the pan first. Then I weighed out the flour, and added all other dry ingredients to this. Once I’d shoved it into the pan, I added the yeast.

I cranked Bev to her French setting and dialed up a medium crust.

Another too-easy effort!

The result?

A lovely white loaf with a nicely high, rounded – and crisp – dome.

I guess if I have any concerns, it’s that this loaf consumes so much flour, and doesn’t tax the old creative juices on the way through.

Still . . . the posse will have something different for their lunches tomorrow!

PS: So what's the verdict 24 hours later?

Well, the posse thought this loaf was boring, lacking "any" of the flavour of my wholemeals and mixed-seed loaves . . .

Unless I want to make a simple, no-fuss bread, I think I'll be giving the French a big miss!

Chocs away!

All you choc-aholic crumbniks won’t be disappointed with this recipe – Loafing Pete’s naughty choc-n-fruit loaf.

She's a real sweetie!

I found myself with a few spare hours early this afternoon - and having knocked out another lunch loaf, I thought I’d experiment with chocolate (sorry, you’ll just have to wait another day or so for the coffee version).

The ingredients for this 750gm loaf are:

* 290 mls of tepid tap water

* 2 tbspns of olive oil

* 450 gms of plain flour

* An extra tbspn of plain flour (or 3 tspns of gluten flour if you have it)

* 2 tbspns of rich powdered drinking chocolate (I use a brand called Taboo, distributed here in Australia by Grinders Coffee)

* 2 tbspns of brown sugar

* 1 ½ tspns of salt

* 1 tspn of improver

* 1 ½ tbspns of milk powder

* ½ cup of sultanas

* 1 tbspn of finely crushed peanuts

* 1 ½ tspns of dry yeast.

I definitely recommend putting all dry ingredients and the fruit in a bowl and mixing thoroughly to ensure the chocolate is uniform through the mix.

I then added this to the water and oil in the baking pan, then added the yeast.

I set Bev on her “sweet” cycle, and dialed up a medium crust (all up, about 3hrs).

The result is an amazingly rich, soft fruit loaf (if you want it fruitier, add more “tarnies”) with a lovely rounded top. Gang members say they want to take tomorrow as a morning-tea snack.

Taboo, being a drinking chocolate tends to be rich, and not overly sugary, but the brown sugar seems to add real oommpphhhhh and an extra degree of mellow softness. The nuts add some extra crunch. Can’t describe it any other way.

I’m going to tinker with this recipe, as it’s definitely going on my baking dance card as a morning or afternoon tea loaf.

Driving costs south . . .

With the price of specialist store- and supermarket-bought breads rising, it’s worth considering the cost advantage of home baking.

Sure, there’s the enjoyment I get from the exercise – as well as the wonderful baking smells wafting through the house as a loaf reaches the end of its baking cycle – but I’ve also slashed the family bread bill dramatically.

Here in Australia, you can spend anywhere between $A4.50 and $A7 for a decent commercially made loaf. Even at the lower end of that scale your mob can be churning through as much as $A27 worth of bread a week (a loaf a day for, say, six days). It’s easy enough to do if you have 3-4 lunches to make daily, and one or more of you like toast for breakfast.

No doubt – like me – when you start out with a bread machine, you buy the commercial home-baking kits. But trust me . . . you won’t be saving much if you keep driving down that track. And there are still preservatives and other additives you should avoid.

But once you start scratch-building loaves, you should be able to drive the cost of even your most exotic creations down to as little as $A1.50 a loaf.

Although maths was never my strong suit (hence my career in writing and journalism!), I’m saving the Heininger posse about $A18 a week just on bread. Over a year, that’s almost $A1000 . . . or at least 20 family get-togethers at our favourite Vietnamese noodle bar.

Put this way, you can see there are better things to spend your dough on (doh!) than commercial bread!

Ingredients

You’ll find most of what you need – flours, yeast, improver, oats, seeds, oil, salt, etc. – on your supermarket shelves anyway. Specialist items like gluten flour are a bit harder to track down, but many health-food stores and mail-order suppliers stock it.

The trick is to buy as much as you can in the biggest bags possible – and to have vermin-proof, air-tight storage bins and containers in convenient spots not far from ‘baking central’. My next move is to buy, say, 30kg bags of flour (plain and wholemeal) and store this in resealable plastic bins on rollers under the stairs.

I buy at least 1kg of rolled oats and milk powder at a time, and larger 500gm bags of linseed/flax seeds and buckwheat. Not sure what's available in your country, but I also use Lowan improver (in 250gm bags) and Lowan instant dry yeast (in 280gm resealable containers).

My next trick is to visit a grocery wholesaler here in Sydney to see how much lower I can drop my costs.

Storage

You’ll find that if you store flour properly, it should keep for as much as six months. The trick is to use it all - or almost all - before buying more. And if you’re making even one loaf a day, over six days of the week (at 450gms of flour a loaf), you’ll churn through 30kg of flour in roughly 11 weeks.

Once opened, everything else I use goes into resealable containers, and is stored at a constant temperature in dark recesses of kitchen cupboards – with the exception of the yeast; I store its resealable container in another resealable plastic box in the fridge (got th keep the moisure out).

We’ve re-arranged the kitchen cupboards so I have easy access to everything – including the salt and oil (which has a pouring attachment on the bottle instead of its screw lid).

And I keep all my utensils – measuring spoons, cups, spatula and electronic scales - in the same drawer, along with the electric carving knife and blades. That way, nothing ever (seems) to go missing.

Hope this helps!

White ‘quickie’ . . . with oats

Well, crustniks, I thought I was diving for the lowest common denominator when I discovered late last night that this morning’s school lunches would not be covered by previous baking efforts.

I opted for the quickest basic white I could lay hands on . . . with my usual slight tweaking, of course!

And I have to say the results were far better on the eyes and taste buds than I had anticipated, and will become a regular on my ‘white’ dance card.

You’ll need the following – and don’t forget to add the liquids to the pan first, and mix all dry ingredients on a bowl before adding them (oh . . . and add the yeast last, after you’ve popped the dry stuff in the pan):

* 290 mls of tepid tap water

* 1 tbspn of olive oil

* 450 gms of plain white flour

* 1 tbspn of rolled oats

* 1 tbspn of milk powder

* 1 tbspn of brown sugar

* 1 tspn of improver

* 1 ½ tspns of salt

* 1 ½ tspns of dry yeast

I set Bev on the three-hour ‘white’ program, with medium crust.

And the rewards for this 10 minutes of effort (on my part, anyway)? A yummy, soft white loaf with a delightfully oaty edge. I’m also convinced that the richer brown sugar also adds to the slightly ‘earthy’ after-taste.

As with my previous white loaf, this one rose nicely, with a wonderfully round, browned dome. Although soft, it was easy to cut with a bread knife, with minimal crumb. The texture was also smooth.

Anyway, so far so good. My gals tell me they have been generating a fair degree of lunchtime curiosity with the various types of breads they’ve been taking . . . and the longer we do this, the smaller (they say) commercial bread slices look.

White . . . with crunch

OK, loafniks. . . here’s another slightly off-white for your records.

The ingredients are as follows – and by now you know the liquids go into the bread pan first: 

* 290 mls of tepid tap water

* 1 tbspn of olive oil

*450 gms of plain white flour

* 1 tbspn of linseed/flax seed

* 1 tbspn of buckwheat

* 1 tbspn of milk powder

* 1 tbspn of raw sugar – not the white death this time!

* 1 tspn of improver

* 1 ½ tspns of salt

* 1 ½ tspns of dry yeast

 As usual, I mixed the dry things together before adding them to the pan. 

I then cranked Breville Bev for the ‘white’ program, with medium crust (3hrs). 

The result? A great-tasting white with an edge . . .  no doubt due to the seeds. The raw sugar also lessens the overall sweetness, and allows the bread to toast well. 

The loaf rose nicely in the pan, and when baked, it had a wonderful, crispy dome. 

Ideal for those school lunches! 

My next move is to try this with a touch of coffee in the mix. Should be dynamite! 

Cholesterol-busting wholemeal loaf

Well, all you breadniks out there, here’s a loaf designed to help you lower cholesterol and generally give your liver a break. Like so many of my recent efforts, it’s based on my mate, Rich Baldry’s, original wholemeal oaten loaf. 

You’ll need the following for a 750-ish gram loaf: 

* 325mls of tepid tap water

* 1 ½ tbspns of olive oil (which also plays a part in the liver-fixing process)

* 300gms of wholemeal flour

* 150gms of plain white flour

* 1 ½ tbspns of milk powder

* 1 tbspn of sugar (I’ve used white this time)

* 1 tbspn of linseed/flax seeds

* 1 tbspn of buckwheat

* 1 tbspn of rolled oats

* 1 tspn of improver

* 1 ½ tspns of salt

* 1 ¾ tspns of dry yeast

 As with all my loaves lately, I add the water and oil together first, then combine all the dry ingredients in the same bowl (which I weigh the flour in). Once I’ve added all this to Breville Bev’s baking pan, I add the yeast. 

I then set Bev on her wholemeal cycle (about 3hrs 40mins), for a medium crust. 

Yummo! Sure beats the piss-poor commercial ‘sourdough’ loaf we bought last night as a stop-gap! And this one’s sweeter than previous wholemeal loaves – no doubt due to the linseed and plain flour.

The texture is fairly open, and the crust is . . . well, crusty. There are just enough seeds and buckwheat to provide pleasant crunch, but not enough to make this an excuse for a bird-feeder seed stick

A real stunner you’d be proud to take home to Mum! 

 

Best wholemeal loaf so far!

I completed another 750gm loaf last night, and it's an absolute bobby dazzler!

Here are the ingredients:

* 325mls of tepid tap water
* 1 tbspn of olive oil
* 400gms of wholemeal flour
* 50gms of plain white flour
* 2 tbspns of rolled oats
* 2 tbspns of mixed seed
* 1 tbspn of raw sugar
* 1 1/2 tspns of salt
* 1 tspn of improver
* 1 3/4 tspns of dry yeast

I set Bev on the wholemeal setting for a medium crust (3hrs 40mins).

The loaf was finished about 11.30pm last night, but the top was still crispy this morning. It has a nice, open-ish texture and a nutty, 'raw' flavour . . . and toasts well. Not too much sugar this time . . .)

When all else fails – hit the oven!

Well, gang, I promised you I’d have another lash at my wholemeal oat loaf – this time adding the salt.

But what I didn’t count on was a power outage just as Bev’s baking cycle was about to kick in. 

I left the dough to proof for almost two hours (!), which it did superbly, before the power came back on. However, Bev reverted to her original three-hour cycle – which meant I had to fire up the kitchen oven. 

I turned the dough out onto a floured board and gave it a half-hearted knead before sticking it into an oiled baking pan and covering (thanks, Rich, for your plastic shopping bag idea! The dough continued to rise steadily for another hour before I thought it was ready to ‘fire’). 

I pre-heated the fan-forced oven to a shade more than 200C (about 400F) and set the timer for 35 minutes. 

The result? A fantastic loaf! Great dome! Wonderfully hollow sound when I turned it out of the pan! Great smell wafting all through the house! 

The taste is richer than normal (the raw sugar?), but delightfully oaten. The texture is slightly dense and it’s chewier than commercial loaves, However, it melts in the mouth. 

Man! I am really getting to love baking! 

Now – the ingredients (in order): 

* 325 mls of tepid tap water

* 450 gms of wholemeal flour

* 1 tbspn of plain flour

* 2 tbspns of rolled oats

* 1 tbspn of olive oil

* 1 ½ tspns of salt (didn’t forget it this time!)

* 1 tbspn of raw sugar (thought I’d try it instead of the usual ‘white death’)

* 1 tspn of bread improver

* 1 ½ tbspns of milk powder

* 1 ¾ tspns of dry yeast

 Now the posse will be spoilt for choice – lunches tomorrow will be either wholemeal or white-oat – and two loaves lovingly hand-made for less than the price of one tasteless factory jobbie.

 

Classic, oaten white – Mk III

The posse has been at me for several days to make a few more white loaves for the school lunches.

And you ought to know me by now; I can’t leave basic recipes well alone!

As I’ve made two faultless loaves using this recipe today, I feel confident it will work for you, too.

You’ll need (in this order) the following to make a 750gm loaf:

·         325 mls of tepid tap water

·         450 gms of white flour (I used organic for a change)

·         2 tbspns of rolled oats

·         1 tbspn of mixed seeds

·         1 tbspn of olive oil

·         1 ½ tspns of salt

·         1 ½ tbspns of white death (sugar)

·         1 tbspn of milk powder

·         1 tspn of bread improver

·         1 ½ tspns of dry yeast 

I set Breville Bev on the white loaf setting, with medium crust (about 3hrs).

Now, interestingly, I have taken to adding all dry ingredients in one hit, and I think the end results speak for themselves (none of this hanging around for the eight-minute additives beep!)

I’ve produced two wonderfully shaped white loaves – almost too pretty to carve and eat. And the house has that well-loved smell of fresh baking.

The oats give the organic flour a full-bodied taste that leaves the factory-cranked white stuff for dead.

Just go for it, and see what I mean!

 

More haste, less structure

I bought a bag of mixed seeds today – sunflower, pumpkin and pinenuts  - and thought I’d pop them in my latest wholemeal loaf, along with rolled oats.

But if there’s one thing I’ve learned tonight it’s that you can’t leave out the salt!

My ingredients list was:

·       * 325 mls of tepid tap water

·       * 1 tbspn of olive oil

·       * 3 cups of wholemeal flour

·       *  1 tbspn of white sugar

·       * ¼ cup of mixed seeds

·       * 1 tbspn of rolled oats

·       * 1 tspn of bread improver

·       * 1 ½ tbspns of milk powder

·       * 1 ¾ tspns of dry yeast. 

Unfortunately, in my rush I left out the 1 ½ tspns of salt – which has again caused the dome to collapse. 

I set Breville Bev on the wholemeal setting with medium crust. 

But this sucker smells so good I’m going to repeat the recipe, this time in full. 

Stay tuned!