Olympic Food Challenge: Non Bread - Tajikistan

Today, my Olympic Food Challenge journey has entered Tajikistan.  Formerly part of the Soviet Union, Tajikistan is a landlocked country in Asia, bordered by Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, China and Kyrgyzstan.  The cuisine is largely influenced by the food of these neighbouring countries with the national dish being pilaf.  

My non bread - but it is real, honest!

Meals are usually served with non, a flatbread found throughout Central Asia. If a Tajik has food but not non, he will say he is out of food. If non is dropped on the ground, people will put it up on a high ledge for beggars or birds. Legend holds that one is not supposed to put non upside down because this will bring bad luck. The same holds true if anything is put on top of the non, unless it is another piece of non (source - Wikipedia)

I loved the above bits of trivia and the beautiful designs shown in pictures that I found when I was looking for a recipe so I knew this was the dish for me.  Plus, it gave me some bread to go with the cauliflower soup that I made yesterday - and now I'm stuffed to the gills for the rest of the day.

Traditional non bread

The recipe was pretty easy to do, if a little time consuming.  My sponge went a bit bonkers and so I managed to short-cut a little of the time.  The resulting bread was nice and soft although do pay attention to the bit that says to have the toppings to hand for when you take the hot trays out of the oven.  I didn't and ended up flinging salt at them so had to brush quite a bit off when it came to the eating.  

I just wish I had a fancy bread stamp and had thought to find out what the traditional ones are glazed with to give them their lovely golden hue.  You can find the recipe that I used here.

As for their Olympic and Paralympic entries, they won a single bronze medal in the weight lifting at the Olympics and have one competitor in the Power Lifting at the Paralympics although their Paralympians have yet to win a medal.

Paul Hollywood's Eight Strand Plaited Loaf

This wasn't so much about trying out a new recipe as trying out a new technique.  I've had a plaited loaf on my mental 'to-do-list' for the past year but just never gotten round to doing so.  I'd intended to make Challah which is a similarly complex plait but with a slightly sweeter bread.  But I gave up on the 'Bread of the Week' idea in about week two and have just never gotten round to it.

I picked the recipe for a number of reasons.  One because it was the technical challenge on the Great British Bake Off this week, two because I've just been given a pile of plums and apples which I intend to turn into Dan Lepard's Plum Glitter Jam tomorrow (and the bread will be great to test the jam on) and three because....dammit, I'm sure there was a third reason and my mind has gone totally blank save for random Three Letter Acronyms from the Prince2 course I've just completed.

Anyhoo, I was reading an article by The Silver Fox this week where he confirmed my previous assertions that there are just six basic baking recipes and everything else is a variation on a theme.  If you look at sponge sandwiches, they all use the same sugar/butter/flour/egg ratio, the only variation is the tweaks in flavouring and the quantities depending on the size of your baking pan.  Likewise with bread.  It is flour, yeast, salt and water.  Yes you can add loads of stuff to it; shape it differently; cook it differently; but at the end of the day, you still start out with the same basic ingredients and are ruled by the science of baking as to whether or not you get the perfect product.


And so it was that I attempted the eight strand loaf this morning.  It's a basic white bread dough but with double the yeast.  This meant that within 45 minutes, my lovely pillowy dough was making a break from the confines of its bowl for the work surface.  I knocked it back, tried to roll out my 'sausages' but it was just so stretchy and full of air that it kept shrinking back on itself.  In fact, it would've made for an amazing pizza base.

I had been surprised at the advice to use flour for kneading.  Hollywood normally recommends oil as he says extra flour on the board or your hands can change the consistency of a loaf.  In order to work with this very 'wet' dough though the flour was definitely needed.  I eventually ended up with eight springy and rather uneven dough sausages and it was time to commence with the plaiting.

Actually, it wasn't that hard to do.  Yes, the instructions could've been better laid out.  But if you can count to eight, it really isn't that hard.  Sadly my uneven sausages made for an uneven plait.  I've never been any good at rolling sausage shapes.  Even back in the days of doing it with playdough as a child, mine were always mishapen and not perfectly smooth and wrinkle free like my peers were making.

I also think my very soft dough conspired against me with the loaf ending up quite flat in shape after its second rise.  I do have problems with my free-form loaves seemingly expanding more sideways than upwards.  I could do with a tip or two from Sir Paul of Hollywood as to why this happens but I guess I'll probably have to end up asking Google.

So I've done it.  It baked okay and made an average loaf.  Nothing to write home about.  At the end of the day, it's a bog-standard white bread and I think my Giraffe/Tiger bread is more impressive than this.  But next time I'm making a bog-standard white loaf, I may just give it another go if I can find out if it was because my dough was too soft.

You can find the recipe/instructions here.

Looking ropey

Banana, Maple Syrup and Pistachio Bread

With my mind on the idea of having a picnic, I totally disregarded the local weather forecast's doomsaying that it was going to be at best cloudy in Wiltshire today.  I have mentioned my love of picnics before.  It's another one of those family-oriented activities that the husband can't stand.  He gets twitchy the moment I mention the idea and I'm sure he prays for the weather to turn before we make it out the door.

Completely unfazed by all the potential pitfalls, I chose to have a go at Jamie's Banana Bread.  I should've stopped when I read the name 'Jamie Oliver'.  I have had zero success with his recipes this year (aside from Mulled Cider, which doesn't really count).  I should also have re-read my Mulled Cider post about how pictures of his recipes on the web look nothing like they do in reality - even factoring in the fact that I don't cook for a living.

Tin-bound

I came across the recipe when researching breakfast recipes for this week.  I'm on a pretty intensive course and have been warned by my boss that it's going to be a tough week and if I don't do well and have spent the week responding to work email, tweeting and blogging then I won't be very popular on my return to work.  So I have decided to go with breakfast recipes to get things over and done early in the day, short posts like I did on holiday and blind panic that I'm going to fail and it will all go horribly wrong.

Anyhow, this recipe looked like the perfect picnic food.  Soft banana bread, studded with nuts and glazed with honey.  Not being a honey fan, I replaced it with maple syrup and used pistachios instead of almonds for the lovely green colour.

If you look at the picture on the website, the bread actually looks like one of those soft mini bread rolls that you might buy from M&S or Waitrose.  The husband likes really soft bread and I was slightly ignorant of the fact that basic bread doesn't bake into a finished product like that.  To do soft rolls properly, you need to use something like Dan Lepard's Soft White Baps

My finished bread was slightly grey inside (understandable with the banana content, but not at all visible in Jamie's picture) and soft, but not all spongy like the picture seems to indicate.  I also have issue with the size of the bread in the picture.  Jamie says to use his basic white bread recipe and divide it into ten balls.  I used half of the bread recipe and managed eight gigantic rolls.  With his cheeky chappie 'bish, bash, bosh' approach to writing, he also neglects to mention what size and shape tin to put them into.  I put my eight into my 9" springform tin and they filled it nicely.

The taste was okay even if the texture was a little disappointing based on the picture on the website.  But it was chewy, they are nice warm, Miss A loved them and I think they'd work well in the winter with a big mug of hot chocolate.

I like the concept and will try adapting the recipe further in the future - but from now on, I'll stick to Dan's baking recipes.  As pretty much everyone I know who has tried a recipe from Short and Sweet or his Guardian recipes will tell you - quite simply they do what they say on the (baking) tin.  Stick to real food Jamie and leave the baking recipes to the experts.

Olympic Food Challenge - Smörgåsbord Open Sandwiches on Black Bread with Pickled Cucumber - Denmark

It's all over.  This is my final Olympic Food Challenge Post.  The last medal has been contested and the UK won a silver.  I never thought I'd be sad to see the end of the Olympics, but it's been an amazing nineteen days that has bought most of the country together and encouraged me to learn more about the world and have fun whilst doing it.

Nom! is all I have to say about this

Denmark have had an okay games.  With 113 athletes competing in 17 disciplines, they will be heading home tomorrow with two golds, four silvers and three bronzes for their troubles.  And they even managed to swipe a gold medal in the track cycling which is pretty impressive given how well Team GB dominated that domain.

As for the foodie side of things, Denmark is the only place on my list of countries that I've actually been to.  I was about ten and my mother took me to Legoland.  My overriding food memory was of this really posh woman with an awful, horsey voice who used to spend all her time whinnying on about how 'Daddy has a private jet' and 'Daddy has a 40ft yacht' and how 'Tarquin and Ophelia are privately educated, don't you know'.  And yet every day, whilst everyone else stumped up the two Danish Kroner for a packed lunch, she used to save herself a few bob by taking enough food from the Smörgåsbord breakfast table and slipping it into a carrier bag to be consumed later in the day.  She even emptied bowls of rice krispies into bags.  I guess this is why I'm not rich.

Other than that, I remember eating a lovely, red spicy dish with frankfurters in it, potato salad and drinking Apfelsaft which bemused me because it was orange juice and not apple.  We may or may not have had Danish pastries.  We might have had bacon.  But there is nothing that I could put my finger on that I ate that I wanted to make again (25 years does a lot to dull the memory).

Not quite black, but close enough

So, having already tried making Danish pastries on this blog several times (cherry Danish, quick apricot Danish, disaster Danish and Dan Lepard's Amazing Danish), I wanted to try something else.  Before I picked Apple Cake for my Romanian offering, I really wanted to make Aebleskiver which are little apple dough balls from Denmark.  Trouble is, you need the proper pan or you don't get to make them as they come out in little spheres.  A bit of Googling told me there's not much else you can make in the special pan other than Aebleskiver and having already bought a bamboo steamer, I decided to try and keep on the husband's good side and not buy yet more things to clutter up the cupboard with.



Further Googling led me back to Smörgåsbord and a picture of Danish Open sandwiches.  Bingo.  I could get through today by trying a new recipe to satisfy my own blog criteria (however loose they are and how ever much I bend the rules to get through the 366 recipes!) and by making something remotely Danish looking, I'd tick the box on the OFC too.

I chose Dan Lepard's Black Bread recipe as I'd already done his Black Pepper Rye.  I know Scandinavians eat lots of rye bread.  Whether or not Dan's recipe is anywhere near what you'd find in Denmark, I have no idea, but I knew it would work and I'd most likely enjoy it.  And it did.  But I didn't go much on it sliced and buttered as I'd do with normal bread.  However, topped with cream cheese, pickled cucumber, prawns and caviar, the bread really came into its own and the liquorice flavour from the fennel seeds really complimented all the other flavours.

Labelled Elsinore but made in Sweden

I am seriously not a fan of licorice and only went with fennel seeds because I couldn't find my cumin seeds (hubby has been 'tidying' again).  If I make it again, I'll definitely go with the cumin seeds and replace the treacle with honey (as suggested by Dan).

And my new addiction is pickled cucumber.  This was a last minute addition as I suddenly got a bit panicked about what to put on the sandwich.  I already had the caviar and prawns but wondered if I could do two different types.  T'interweb suggested pickled cucumber and pickled herrings.  I found a recipe and made my own cucumber - simple, addictive, making more once this blog is posted.  Sadly(!), Sainzlebobs were all out of pickled herrings.  I was devastated.

So we go out on a high with me having tried some more new stuff, and enjoyed it.  I would like to thank Ewan Mitchell for hosting this challenge and encouraging us to experiment (although I draw the line at SoupTuesday's Deep Fried Duck Tongues).  Do go and read all the other amazing posts too.  You can find links on the Olympic Food Challenge blog.

Bread recipe can be found here (and also in Short and Sweet) and the one for the cucumber is here.

Fi Harvey's Courgette and Goat's Cheese Bread

I've been meaning to blog about my holiday for a while now but I've never gotten round to it.  We spent the first week in North Berwick, a seaside town on the Firth of Forth.  We've visited for odd days before to view the famous Bass Rock which is one of the seven great natural wonders of the world, but this year, I decided we'd base ourselves there for a week.

The finished bread - won't last much longer!

Hubby is a keen twitcher (he hates that term) and passionate wildlife photographer so being close to the Bass and with the endless sandy beaches that South East Scotland and North East England have to offer, it seemed like the perfect family holiday.

But what made it even more special was being invited to a gathering of some of the Edinburgh Cake Ladies.  Months ago, I discovered that the lovely @Allison_Patrick who I randomly followed on Twitter lives in North Berwick. She mentioned that she'd organise a gathering but I thought no more of it.  A day or two before we arrived, she asked where we were staying and it turned out she knew the owners of the cottage.  Not only that but she manages a beautiful B&B right next door to where we were staying.

On arrival, I did my usual tour of the cottage, rapidly assessing it for both for how good it looked before we unpacked and how much potential there was for Miss A to break something valuable.  I swiftly removed the bottle of wine that had been left to welcome us from the lounge table and moved onto the kitchen.  At which point I got excited that they'd also left us fresh bread, bacon, eggs and milk from the local farm.  Better than the last place we stayed at in Norfolk where we got a packet of Happy Shopper bourbons.

The fridge also appeared to be dominated by a rather large package of silver foil.  Strange.  But perched on top of it was a note from Allison, welcoming us to North Berwick and saying that the parcel contained a coconut meringue roulade filled with raspberries and marscapone cream.  I was overawed by such generosity from someone I'd never even met.  And it tasted amazing too.

Allison's roulade which didn't last long either!

Not only that but she convened a special meeting of the Cake Ladies where I finally got to meet @HungrySquirrels and @HarbourHussy as well as @Edincakeladies, @MadeByFi, @LouLouElla, @21UrbHousewife and @ShellyLovesTea.  An amazing group of ladies and it made me finally realise that my husband's crackpot plan to move to Scotland might not be so bad after all.  I've been sworn to secrecy not to reveal what went on that night, but I will say that the Buckfast was bought out at one point.  Other than that, what happens at cake club, stays at cake club.

This of course meant that I had a whole bunch of new people to tweet with when I got home - one being Fi Harvey (@MadeByFi) who last week blogged about this amazing summery looking loaf that I just had to try. I had thought about doing it for my Mum's birthday barbecue but that falls right in the middle of the Olympic Challenge and I felt that this bread needed eating and this post needed writing outside of that madness so I made it this morning.

Ready for the oven.

It was a doddle to do and would be really amazing for a picnic or barbecue.  The flavours were so fresh and the bread was so soft.  I will definitely make this time and again.  I'd never thought about tear-and-share bread, but I loved rolling the filling up inside.  There are endless possibilities for that.

For once, I didn't have enough bread flour in for the recipe, so I used half 00 grade pasta flour and I also substituted mint for the basil which made it taste a lot like Borek.  I was a little worried when I sliced the loaf as the filling was desperate to escape but once the dough started to puff in the oven, it was nicely contained.

One small mistake was baking the bread when I was waiting to go for a run.  Having had a liquid-only breakfast (I can't run after eating anything), it came out of the oven and sat wafting its gorgeous summery smell all round the house making me want to scoff the lot.  Luckily it also motivated me through the four miles and made a fab breakfast.

Top marks to Fi for this recipe which you can find published online at the Broughton Spurtle.  Now I just have to try and persuade the hubby to visit North Berwick again next summer.  Usually, it's the other way around!

Rachel Khoo's Tartines Sucrées et Salées

Or 'Sweet and Savoury Open-Faced Sandwiches' to give it it's very unsexy English name.  If we're being really pedantic here, it's actually 'Different Stuff on Toast'.  But it sounds so much nicer en Français.

Today's recipe choice comes from Rachel Khoo's Little Paris Kitchen which I accidentally bought earlier this week when the Book People were peddling their wares at work.  I picked it because for once I actually managed to get home in time to collect Miss A from nursery.  A very rare event these days.  And it was only because I had an unavoidable medical appointment just before the end of the nursery day.

I'm still trying to get my head around being the breadwinner of the family and reconciling that with being a mum too.  In my pre-baby head, the two things never went hand-in-hand.  I'd either have a career or a family.  Not both.  But life is rarely as planned.  I'm getting used to it as my skin has finally started to thicken against the barrage of outright criticism and snide comments from people who have no right to comment on my life and the thoughtless mouth-engaged-before-brain comments from some of my nearest and dearest.

Yes, that's butter, not cheese under the radishes!

The most cutting comments often come from the mouths of babes.  And Miss A has put me firmly in my place this week.  When she's angry with me she tells me 'I don't like Mummy any more' and that 'Mummy should go back to work in Bristol'.  When she's talking about her favourite people, she tells me that Emma is her 'Daytime Mummy' or her 'Other Mummy'.  As lovely as Emma is, she's only Miss A's nursery teacher from when she was in the baby room.  Miss A only spends two days a week at nursery - the rest of the time she's with the husband.  I'm now known as 'Real Mummy'.  It's nice she makes the distinction but it still makes me a tad jealous.

So of course, when I do spend time with her, I have this massive need to make up to her for the fact that I'm out trying to keep a roof over her head and keep her in stickers.  Normally, her after school snack is malt loaf or a gingerbread butterfly (all home made just in case Mrs Sconegate is still lurking - yes, I still can't let that go!) but today, I wanted to make something we could share together.

The tartines seemed ideal.  Basically, Khoo gives you a set of ideas of things to pop on toast.  Ordinarily we'd have jam or peanut butter and chocolate Philly but I love all of these different  ideas.  Toast is probably my favourite food ever.  I've mentioned previously that if I was stranded on a desert island, my luxury item would be a toaster (I forgot to say solar-powered last time).  So I was really excited to try some of the recipes out.  And the remains of Dan Lepard's Zopako from the weekend made the perfect base.

Miss A had chocolate Philly and sliced strawberries on hers (not in the book).  I plumped for Radish and Salted Butter; Feta and Nectarine (inspired by Khoo's Peaches and Brie of which I had neither in the fridge) and Strawberry and Creme Fraiche.  I knew the fruity ones would go down well but I was intrigued by the radish one as I've only recently started to eat radishes.  Except someone had other ideas and swiped it.

I was amused because I am still battling with Miss A over whether or not she'll eat veggies and had assumed if she picked anything, she'd go for the strawberry one.  Never mind.  She prodded her fingers into the thick layer of butter, spread some chocolate onto one end, ate a mouthful with a radish, added a strawberry, offered me a bite and then immediately snatched it away.  So I can only imagine how it tasted, but if she enjoyed it then I'm sure I would.

I'll definitely try out some of the other ideas - especially looking forward to Avocado and Grapefruit; and Chocolate and Olive Oil.  I guess it's all about getting out of a creativity rut and not just defaulting to jam or cheese when it's toast time.  I can see my diet going out of the window some time very soon with this book.

Dan Lepard's Zopako

Early yesterday morning, I had a yearn for freshly made bread and was delighted to see Dan Lepard tweet his recipe for Zopako - a Basque Soup Bread - and Castilian Garlic and Bread Soup.  Perfect.  Despite the fact that my fridge was rammed solid with things purchased for other recipes, this seemed like just the ticket for today.

It has to be about the simplest loaf recipe ever.  Chuck everything in a bowl, give it a quick knead (10 seconds), leave overnight, shape, rise and bake.  Job done.  Lovely and crusty rustic loaf with minimal effort.

I duly made the dough last night.  It only requires a 1/4 tsp of fast action yeast for the rise as you leave it out overnight.  This morning it had doubled in size nicely.  I shaped it as instructed.  Did the rising part.  Popped it in the oven.  It all seemed to be going too well.  Within two minutes, I could smell freshly baking bread.  I thought that was a bit odd given that it had literally only been two minutes.  But never thought to go and investigate.  As a rather seasoned - if not good - baker, I know that you don't check things until they're at least halfway through their baking time otherwise you can expect disaster.

Toasted loaf!

The instructions were to bake for 20 mins at 220c and then reduce the temperature for the last 15 minutes.  But still that baking smell pervaded the air.  At around fifteen minutes, it started to have a 'burnt toast' kind of smell.  But I resisted for another four minutes.  Which was when I realised that having made toast for Miss A, I'd upped the temperature for the bread bake but had forgotten to switch from grill to oven mode.  So I'd literally grilled my loaf.  And the burnt smell was the flour dusted on the top singeing.  Oops.

Slightly panicked, I removed it from the oven, setting off the smoke detectors whilst I did it (and rousing a less than amused husband from his slumber at 9am).  Because we live in a modern townhouse, the smoke detectors are linked so if one goes, all three (one on each floor) go in unison.  Of course, that set Miss A crying and the dogs howling.  I'm now about another fifty places down the husband's scale of things he likes (my last ranking was #483).

The loaf was left to cool while Miss A and I escaped for our regular swim, and babyccino with Sainsbury's Cheese Scone (see Sconegate).  I assumed that when I returned, I'd end up chucking it away.  But actually, it's turned out to be a really nice loaf with a beautiful crumb and the slightly charred crust only lends to the rustic flavour.  I think I was saved by the tray of boiling water used to help create a steamy atmosphere in the oven.

Will definitely be making again as it's so very easy (if you remember to set your oven correctly) and I want to have a go at making the garlic soup one day - when I won't be in polite company.  I the bread it for lunch with the 'soup' I made from last night's leftover sauce and the hubby and Miss A had ploughmans.  I'm now planning to have it for tea too, alongside some more of the lovely Three Tomato Salad that I made on Friday.  All I need now is some early evening sunshine and a bottle of Chablis and I could pretend I was somewhere a little more exotic than North Wiltshire.

Recipe can be found here.

James Martin's Caramel Apple Brioche

This is something I've been wanting to make for a long time, but have shied away from because of the whopping calorie content.  But in a fit of pre-diet carb-loading, I decided it was now or never.  It was either this or Churros y Chocolat from Thomasina Miers Mexican Food Made Easy.  This only won because I'm still a bit of a wuss when it comes to deep-fat-frying without a deep-fat-fryer.

As with all James' recipes, this involves an awful lot of butter, and lots of sugar too.  But it has fruit in it, so I figured it counts as one of my five a day.  And I eschewed the dollop of softly whipped double cream in favour of a dollop of Greek yogurt, thus saving a few calories and also helping to cut through the tooth-rotting sweetness that is basically toffee apples on sweet French Toast.

Miss A had one triangle of toast with a smear of the toffee and a freshly sliced apple but managed to swipe a second bit of the bread and ram it in her mouth before I knew where it had gone.  I've tried her with French toast before but she's always turned her nose up at it.  I think the brioche version - sans toffee sauce - might make a good compromise in future.

The brioche I used was a pre-bought, ready sliced one which is pretty lazy of me, but it's a great way to use up the end of a left over loaf whether you make your own or not.  It's something I've done before on this blog (read the post here) and it was a bit of an epically long recipe so not something I do regularly - but worth it for the treat.  I do also want to try Dan Lepard's brioche recipe on day - and that takes two days of baking!


One cheat was to use Bonne Maman Dulche de Leche rather than making my own caramel sauce.  Purely because I had a half open jar in the fridge and didn't have any double cream to hand.


My finally change to the recipe was to not peel my apples and to use Pink Ladies, leaving the skin on to give a pretty contrast to all the brown of the toast and the toffee.  The picture doesn't really do it justice, but they did look quite decorative.  I really need to work on my food photography!


Serves 2

• 4 slices plain brioche, halved
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 2 Pink Lady Apples, cored and quartered
• 1/2 tsp vanilla bean extract
• 4 tsp soft brown sugar
• 50 ml milk
• 2 tbsp dulche de leche
• 40g butter

1. Mix the egg, milk, 2 tsp of sugar and vanilla together in a shallow bowl.
2. Heat half the butter in a frying pan.  Once foaming, dip the brioche pieces in the egg mixture and fry until lightly browned on both sides.  Put on a plate in the oven to keep warm.
3. Coat the apple in the rest of the sugar.  Put the remaining butter in the frying pan and turn the heat up.  Toss the apples in the butter until the sugar starts to caramelise.  Add in the toffee sauce and warm slightly then serve over the brioche, topped with some Greek yogurt, creme fraiche or whipped cream.

Welsh Rarebit (or Rabbit)

I'm feeling mighty guilty for picking a Welsh recipe whilst holidaying in Scotland.  I did do a Scottish recipe on Burns night - and missed St David's Day.  And I'm hoping that during this holiday (this post may auto-publish if I've got no interweb) that I'll have swapped out one of my planned recipes for some lovely, locally sourced Scottish produce.  But with two weeks of quick, speedy recipes to come up with, I'm now getting desperate.

Cheese on toast.  Whod've thought it could be so complicated?  But even in our house, I cook it two different ways.  The husband only likes his bread toasted on one side.  The soft side must then be buttered before being covered in sliced cheese.  The cheese must melt and not have a single speck of brown on it.  He then eats it with a knife and fork.

I, on the other hand, really prefer my cheese unmelted.  Give me two nice pieces of toast that have been left in the toaster until they've cooled a little and gone crispy.  Butter with butter that's out of the fridge, but not too hard or too soft (Lurpak spreadable makes this so much easier - but the toast has to be totally cold or it makes the bread soggy with its higher water content).  I then like my cheese grated on the fine grater setting (never the thick one) and piled on top.

Or, if I'm making proper cheese on toast, then I like a smattering of brown specks, but not so much that it tastes of toasted cheese.  We're a fussy pair, aren't we?

I wondered how I could challenge our foibles.  Sometimes the simple things are the best and can't be improved on.  But I'm all about change this year.  So Welsh Rarebit (Rabbit) it was.

A quick Google turned up so many recipes that I started out with Felicity Cloake's article on how to make the best Welsh Rarebit (Rabbit).  It seems like anything goes with different cheeses, liquids, breads and seasonings.  I just wanted something simple.  The husband was pleased to let me try it as it meant I bought him some beer for the evening - I only needed two tablespoons.

I plumped for egg yolks, a dash of Worcestershire sauce and some Dijon mustard - it was all I had.  And it wasn't half bad.  The husband had a bit and said it was 'too cheesy'.  I think he meant it was too tangy for him.  We always have Double Gloucester as the husband doesn't like really mature cheddar.  The combination of flavours ended up making it tangy like a stronger cheddar but with a beautifully soft, melty texture thanks to the liquid and the eggs.

This is something to experiment with when I get home.  After I've had a bit of a holiday food detox.

You can read Felicity's article here.

Dan Lepard's Sour Cream Sandwich Bread

Bread is also off the menu once we get home.  I'm supposed to be following this diet so Miss A will have to forgo homemade bread as it's the one thing I can't resist.  Cake, yep I can let that go.  Fresh bread, no way.

Of course, after 'Sconegate' I may well get vilified for being such an awful mother as to give up making home made bread for my child just because I selfishly want to lose weight.  So I'll make sure I feed her a deep fried Mars Bar or two while we're on holiday.  Just for good measure.

Again, quick, pre-authored post for the day.  Will update when we're back in civilisation.  The recipe can be found here.

Updated 1st July 2012 @ 20:15

Despite my detailed packing list and the fact that I ticked that I had my electronic scales, when we arrived at our first destination, I discovered they were still sat on the worktop in my kitchen about four hundred miles away.  Both houses kindly provided scales, however, I probably would've been just as accurate (or not) guessing at the need for a third of a bag of flour or three-fifths of a block of butter or whatever quantity was needed because both pairs of scales looked to have come from Poundland.  There's nothing wrong with Poundland (other discount stores are available).  Once I'd swallowed my middle-class-aspiring-pride, I discovered some great bargains in there.  But when it comes to precision baking, you need a decent set of scales.  Of course, who in their right mind - other than me - would want to do precision weighing when they're supposedly on holiday?

It made a good fish finger sandwich

I'm so sad that I now even weigh my liquids, having worked out how much various oils and milks weigh (it differs based on the fat content).  Weighing liquids is much easier when you have a measuring jug that has lots most of the numbers off of the side and are as blind as a bat and can't read the measurements anyway.  So I blame my lack of appreciation of this loaf on the fact that I forgot my scales.

It was a good, bog standard white bread.  I'm not sure that the sour cream did much to alter the crust on the loaf when compared to Dan's standard Easy White Loaf.  I was expecting a softer crust but it was actually quite firm.  This could also be because I'm used to cooking in my fan oven and had a conventional oven on holiday.  I guess the way to tell would be to make both loaves simultaneously (and not over six months apart!) and do a side-by-side taste test.

I also did the first rise for this loaf in the fridge.  I did all the faffy kneading early in the morning, then popped it in the fridge whilst we went out for the day.  When I came back, I did the second rise which took about two hours and popped it into the oven and hey presto.  A word to the wise if you want to try this method - reduce the yeast by half.  This was a useful tip I found in Short and Sweet - I've made fridge-risen bread before and it's always tried to escape from its bowl overnight but half the yeast with this one and it was nicely contained.

It kept quite well - we had it a couple of days later for fish finger sandwiches.  I usually have mayo and salsa in mine but with a lack of mayo, I made up some more of Paul's Pico di Gallo and it was awesome!! The last couple of slices were fed to the local sheep.  Who eat anything.  I thought it was only goats that did that but they eat spaghetti, Cheerios, bananas, bird seed, polos, apples and toddler fingers.

I'm in no hurry to bake this one again - it's more expensive than the easy white loaf but if I had some sour cream about to expire in the fridge, I have at least one extra way of using it up rather than forcing myself to eat nachos and sour cream.

And a final post-script.  Sconegate blew up in my face whilst I was away.  Some people are quite happy to dish criticism out but the minute they think you've slighted them (which I didn't) they're happy to get the virtual hatchet out and head straight for your jugular.   And so I've now blocked said person on Twitter.  That was a sad day as Twitter is generally such a nice place to inhabit.

Nigel Slater's Mushroom Bruschetta

This recipe is from an article on the Observer website entitled 'Seven Speedy Snacks'.  I was looking for a really quick breakfast idea that involved mushrooms and leftover sourdough and I just knew that Nigel Slater was the man who'd offer me a recipe.  He just loves putting things on toast.  I assume this is why his autobiography (which I've still got to read - note to self, download to Kindle) is entitled 'Toast'.

Breakfast!

It's one of those really simple recipes that you could probably come up with yourself and I'm sure lots of people will say 'I already make that'.  But sometimes you need inspiration.  Especially with a mammoth task of single-handedly organising a toddler for a weekend away and updating a blog on a Jubilee cake.

I'm also not popular with the hubby because I set the smoke detector off toasting the sourdough this morning.  It goes from stale to burnt remarkably quickly.  But it's a great way to use up the last slice of four-day-old sourdough bread.

And that's it for today.  Just a short blog.  Happy Jubilee weekend!

Dan Lepard's Sourdough

Tea. Just need to practice my loaf cutting skills.

It feels somewhat appropriate that my 250th recipe is baking related (top tag with 92 recipes) and by Dan Lepard (favourite book/baker) with this being recipe 29 of his and bread recipe number 22.  I didn't exactly plan it this way - I started this journey a week ago - but looking at my stats, it seemed to be worthy of comment.  And so I did.

Sourdough bread appears to be the holy grail of bread baking.  Of course, this is only me setting my foot on the very bottom rung of the ladder that is sourdough.  Nevertheless, you appear to not be able to call yourself a bread baker until you've tried this feat.  Why do I say this?  Well a while back, I was Googling the lovely Lorraine Pascale's bread recipes when I found a post questioning her credibility as a baker because she dared to make bread that didn't take a week to prepare.  And this wasn't even her 21st Century Cheese and Ham Bread (which I believe you can make in less than an hour but as the husband doesn't like cheese bread, I've not tried it).  This was a regular, yeasted bread that takes around 2-3 hours from mixing to baking.  But this particular blogger had a beef with Lorraine's loaf not being tasty enough for him and was very scathing about it.

That post angered me that someone could be so rude and condescending.  Not everyone has the privilege of being able to sit around all day waiting for endless kneading and rising and knocking back and more rising.  Surely anything that is homemade is far superior to something that is bought from a shop and packed full of preservatives?  I've made plenty of nice breads over the last year, all of which used yeast.  Maybe sourdough knocks the competition into a cocked hat but sometimes good enough is absolutely fine.

Derek - fresh from the oven

And we're not all lucky enough to have an Artisan bakery at the end of the street - or the budget to buy all our bread there.  And if this guy has an issue with Lorraine, then he will have an issue with pretty much every baker on the planet.  Some people need to get their heads out from their own backsides.  I wonder how he feels about Marco Pierre White advertising stock cubes or Dan Lepard revealing that he uses Smash in some of his bread recipes?  The blog turned by stomach so much I didn't read further.

Anyhow, because this has been an epic recipe, I'm afraid you're going to get an epic post - because I have lots of pictures and another topic I need to get off my chest.  Washing up!  I hate it.  And I only married my husband because he used to be really good at cleaning up.  To the point that he'd even rotate the plates in the cupboard to make sure they wore out evenly.  Post wedding, his kitchen cleaning declined and, having married someone who isn't a fan of cleaning, we often have 'disagreements' about me and my baking.  Especially when bread dough is involved.

I've yet to find an effective way of cleaning bread dough from a bowl without gunking up the scrubby sponge or scrubby brush that we use for manual washing up.  Then there's the issue of the bits of dough that do eventually make it out of the bowl and into the sink and weld themselves to the stainless steal before you have chance to rinse them away.  So of course, when Derek (yes, I've named my sourdough after Derek Branning - a volatile character in Eastenders) decided to escape for a better look at my worktop, I knew this wasn't going to be a 'disagreement' free week in the Crowdey household.

Day #1 Derek is born

Day #2 first signs of life (top right of jar)

Day #3 it's working!

Derek has needed nearly as much attention as a small child since he first escaped.  Luckily, unlike Miss A, he hasn't mastered the art of unlocking and opening the front door and letting the dogs out.  But with the need to remove some of his volume (dough in the sink - see above) and carefully feed him, plus check he was okay in the confines of his new home each day, I've felt like I've had a third child to care for for the last seven days (Miss A being number one and the sunburnt husband being number two).

Lepard reccomends a 500ml kilner jar which is exactly what I used for Derek's first home.  It looked like he had plenty of space to grow, but after his escape, he got moved to a 1.5l kilner.  Just in case...

Day #4 In need of a new home

Day #5 Re-homed

Day #6 - bubbling nicely

Day #7 after his last supper

Still, we made it through the week eventually.  And this morning, before work, I began his first rise.  Of course being a Lepard recipe, this involves the three ten-second kneads over half an hour rather than the traditional ten minute knead.  But it gave me time to make breakfast and coffee in between.

Although it's a Dan Lepard recipe, I got the instructions for the leaven from Azalia's Kitchen.  Short and Sweet doesn't have a full recipe for sourdough.  There are two pages of instructions about how sourdough should work but I'm guessing that Lepard and his publisher probably want you to buy a copy of The Handmade Loaf.  It's in my Amazon basket but there are so many more things I want to try (more than I'll manage before I finish this blog) that I've not yet purchased it.  Thankfully, the well documented online guide from Azalia was really helpful getting the starter made and I then used Dan's Short and Sweet advice (plus some online research) to prep my first loaf.

And we're off!

If you use Azalia's method, you really need to read all the comments too because there is extra clarification around some of the points there.  In a nutshell, however you feed your starter, a ratio of 1 part flour to 1 part water works.  Where she's specified water at 20c, I've used the water from my kettle when it's cooled so I know it's roughly room temperature.

The one thing I hadn't really been prepared for is just how long sourdough can take to rise.  Having done some research, the best ballpark figure I could find for how long it will take to double in size is between four and 12 hours.  Even Lepard himself is vague on the subject.  There are so many factors that can affect a sourdough rise apparently - from the quality of the leaven to the temperature of your room to whether or not there is an 'r' in the month (okay I didn't really read that, but I'm sure someone has said it somewhere).  I then asked Twitter's opinion and @EversNanaJules replied that it's quite happy to be left to rise overnight.  Great idea.

In need of a little more water and some rye

So yesterday morning, I gave Derek one last breakfast in anticipation of starting the bread off last night as it works best 8-24 hours after feeding.

But then I read another online article about how there is a window of opportunity for the rise of bread which is pretty predictable with commercially available yeast, but not so with sourdough.  I decided that given the currently warm weather, I didn't want to slope off to bed and find that my lovely sourdough had peaked and fallen irreparably whilst I was asleep (I needn't have worried as Miss A was awake for most of the night again so I could've checked on it).

So because I had the luxury of working from home today, I fed Derek again last night with 25g of flour and water so I could prep him this morning in that critical 8-24 hour window.  I decided to use Dan's Easy White Loaf recipe because he tells you in the book the exact measurements for replacing the yeast, flour and water with leaven.

Ready to rise

The bit I missed was a comment a few paragraphs before these instructions that a small amount of rye or wholemeal flour will help stop the dough from being so sticky - a trait of an all white loaf.  I also found I only needed 180ml of extra water so I'm glad I followed his advice to add it gradually rather than just putting it all in (he says 225ml of water).  Because the dough was so sticky as I was kneading it, I added 25g of rye flour during knead two which certainly seemed to help smooth it out.

First rise complete.  Looking smooth Derek. He's so grown up!

I left it the loaf starting its first rise at 6.45am - I love that my commute meant that I was at my desk by 6.47am (we live in a townhouse so I had to navigate two flights of baby-gated stairs with my coffee and laptop bag).  With my lunch break at 12pm, I had a half-hour window for knocking back and shaping and  it was then left for the second rise until 5pm.

Thirty minutes in the oven, and a little time to cool on the patio table and I had me a late tea of sourdough with butter and jam.  Lush!

One final picture :)

Was it worth the effort?  Yes, actually it was.  For the following reasons.

1) It tasted like bread that had been bought from a posh shop.  Even better than regular homemade white.  But not something I'd do every day purely because I don't have the time and I would come to not appreciate it.  It's a really special treat.
2) My Proud Mummy Moment (PMM) for the day was when Miss A looked at the loaf and rather than calling it 'Toast' as she does with all homemade bread, she announced that it was 'Sow-dough'.  My heart burst - she's such a little foodie at only two.
3) Because it gave rise to an interesting conversation with the husband about bread containing yeast or sourdough - both of which are live and fungus related.  He has now decided he's never eating bread ever again.  I'll relay the full conversation on another post on another day.

Dan Lepard's Cheesy Torpedoes

Following on from last night's barbecue, I managed to convince the husband that we should go out for a picnic today as well.  To do both things in the space of a weekend is bordering on radical.  I don't remember us eating outside more than once the entire time we lived in London.  And when we moved to Wiltshire, no word of a lie, it took me two years to persuade him to go out for a pub lunch.  He's that unadventurous.

So having agreed that we could go on a picnic, I decided make an effort to not rock the boat by providing food that he likes.  Cheese and ham rolls, pork pies, cocktail sausages, hula hoops, cake and strawberries.  All store bought and full of additives and preservatives.  But if it makes him happy and means that we can picnic outside in the beautiful weather, I'm not going to make too much fuss.

Guess who's got a new camera app?

But of course, with a blog to write, I had to cook something new, didn't I?  Whilst researching what to do with my sourdough starter, I came across this Dan Lepard recipe on the Guardian Website (I don't believe it's in Short and Sweet).  What's not to like about a roll packed with cheese and then stuffed with ham salad?  A lot if you're my husband.

The actual making of these is the easiest Dan Lepard bread recipe I've ever seen.  He's a fan of ten-second kneading every ten minutes for thirty minutes rather than the traditional 10 minute knead.  I must admit, I follow his method now even if the recipe isn't his.  But with these cheese rolls, it's even simpler.  Mix the ingredients to a dough.  Rest for ten minutes.  One ten second knead.  First rise.  Shape.  Second rise.  Bake.  Job Done.  This went really well until I decided to pop to the shops with Miss A for picnic supplies.  I had an hour to kill while I waited for the second rise.  Except it took nearly two hours with her in tow (we had to stop in the cafe for a babyccino) and so when I came back, my nicely sized torpedoes were enormous.

Still they baked well and my only failure was not to put them on baking parchment because all the cheese that oozed out welded itself to my baking tray.  Then the husband saw them and announced 'I don't like bread with cheese in it', thus ending my only hope of giving him something additive and preservative free (he didn't eat any strawberries).  His loss I guess.  Actually, I should've already known this after his similar pronouncement last time I made cheese bread for a picnic.

Miss A and I enjoyed them very much although I have a feeling they have to be eaten when fresh and won't keep well.  Luckily I only made half the recipe.  Really easy to do as I just used half a beaten egg in the mix and saved the rest for the egg wash.  And the local herd of sheep came racing across the field the minute I unwrapped my torpedo, encircled us and didn't leave until I'd finished.  Can't help wondering now if sheep are partial to cheese?

I'd probably make these again if I had a social barbecue.  They'd be great filled with something tasty from the grill - maybe really good quality burgers in lieu of a cheese burger.  I know the recipe uses onions and mustard (I replaced that with paprika) but I think they'd work really well with finely diced jalapenos - and then filled with a Mexican burger with loads of guac, pico de gallo and sour cream.  Yummy!

Recipe can be found here

Lil Ms Squirrel's Vanilla Iced Buns

Whilst idling on Twitter this afternoon, I clicked a link from BBC Good Food magazine about recipes to cook with your children.  In amongst a plethora of cupcakes and brownies, there was one recipe for iced buns.  I don't know why, but I got fixated on the idea of making my own iced buns.  I don't even really like them.  But today's planned Duck and Pink Grapefruit Salad got postponed and I found myself on a mission to make buns.

Butterfly buns

I think the reason I don't really like them is because a) once you've bitten off the icing layer, they're just a bread roll (and not too good a one at that); b) there are a million other ways I'd rather up my calorie intake and c) when I was a child, my mum used to work in a bakers and she could bring home whatever cakes were left at the end of the day.  The leftovers were always cream doughnuts (but ones with fake cream - it was the eighties after all!) and iced buns.  I think I probably ate too many of the things.

Some twenty years on since I last ate one, it seemed like a good idea to try them.  I know that they baked them for one of the technical challenges on the Great British Bake Off this year and I remember shuddering at the time as Paul Hollywood filled them with fresh cream.  Such a waste of good ingredients.  Nevertheless, like a woman on a mission, off I set to make them.

The Good Food recipe started with a packet bread mix and added things to it.  Of course I didn't have one of those in the cupboard so figured that I'd just make the recipe up myself, using my regular bread recipe (minus the olive oil) and add an egg and some sugar.  I also added some salt to balance out the sugar and a teaspoon of vanilla bean paste to make them a little more grown up.

My dough was beautifully soft and blousy after the first rise.  And when I removed it from the bowl, very elastic and  quite sticky with it.  I oiled my hands and the worktop with spray oil which seemed to keep it from sticking, but I found it really hard to shape the dough into fingers.  Being so soft, I just knew it was going to spread sideways too much, rather than forming the straight, narrow buns I was after.

More roll than finger bun :-/

Forty minutes later and my buns were very square.  Undeterred, I popped them into the oven and 12 minutes later, I had some lovely warm, vanilla-scented buns.  The outer shell was crisper than you would get on a mass-produced bun (but then it's the same with bread - who on earth can make soft-crusted Mother's Pride-type white sliced bread at home??) but the inside was really lovely and light - probably because of the extra yeast.

I really should've read Paul Hollywood's recipe before making them (I have the book after all) or read the bit in Short and Sweet again about the science behind bread dough.  I now know that Hollywood doubles the yeast and he adds a little butter and a second egg to his mixture.  He also kneads on a floured rather than oiled surface.  That's interesting because I know he's always on about not using flour because it makes the dough drier.  But who am I to question the master?  Maybe that's why mine were harder to shape?

I also had a bit of an icing fail.  I probably added about three drops too much on the water front and it slowly slid down the side of the buns.  Not fast enough for me to realise it was happening at the time so I could've adjusted the mixture.  Nevertheless, I will be more careful next time.  It's amazing how a few drops can make such a difference with icing.

Overall, they're not bad.  I shared an uniced bun with Miss A and the dogs while they were still warm and the vanilla really came through.  They definitely need the salt as well although probably only the one teaspoon unlike the two that Mr Hollywood uses.  I'd probably even go so far as to bake these again.  I'd intended to use up the last bit of raspberry curd that was left over from my epic raspberry and lime cake the other day but sadly it had 'decomposed' so I had to make do with shop-bought lemon curd.  I think lemon zest in the dough along with fresh lemon curd in the middle and a sharp lemon icing on the top would tick all my boxes on the lemon front.  If I can just master shaping them, I'm on to a winner.

Stuffed with lemon curd

Recipe - makes sixteen buns

• 500g strong white flour
• 300ml warm water (two parts chilled to one part boiling)
• 2 x 7g sachets of instant yeast or 10g dried active yeast (I used dried active)
• 50g sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 large egg, lightly beaten
• 1 tsp vanilla bean paste (or vanilla extract)
• 250g icing sugar
• 30ml cold water
• sprinkles to decorate
• fruit curd or jam to fill (optional)

1. Sift the flour and salt into a bowl.
2. If using instant yeast, stir this into the flour.
3. If using dried active yeast, put the water into a measuring jug and dissolve 1 tsp of the sugar.  Sprinkle in the yeast and leave to bubble for ten minutes.
4. Stir the sugar into the flour then make a well in the centre and pour in the liquid and the egg.  Add the vanilla bean paste and mix to a soft sticky dough.
5. Cover and leave for ten minutes.
6. Lightly oil your work surface and hands, tip the dough out and knead for ten seconds before returning to the bowl and covering.  Repeat this twice more and then leave the dough to rise in a warm place for an hour or until doubled in size.
7. Lightly grease two deep sided baking trays.
8. Divide the dough into sixteen pieces and shape into long roll shapes.  Place in the baking pans leaving space for them to double in size.  Leave to rise until doubled in size (about 45 minutes).
9. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 220c/200c fan/gas 7.
10. Bake for twelve minutes until risen and golden.
11. Remove from the tins and place on a wire rack to cool.
12. If you are going to fill the buns, slice them 3/4 of the way through at this point. (I iced mine first and then the icing cracked when I tried to slice them)
13. Make the icing by carefully mixing the water into the icing sugar until a spreadable consistency is reached.  Use a palette knife to spread icing on each bun, sprinkle with decorations and then leave to dry.
14. Finally, if filling, add a liberal amount of fruit curd or jam to the middle before serving.

Paul Hollywood's Focaccia

If you're a regular follower, you may be aware that I'm on another one of those 'trying to be good' jags.  If I want to be slim, I have to work bloody hard at it and the minute I stop being good, the pounds just pile on.  I was ten pounds lighter when I started this blog.  I deluded myself that as I was training for a half marathon in March and responsible for keeping you entertained everyday with my long-winded tales that I had to eat interesting (read higher calorie) things.

Double, double, toil and trouble...

The gain probably hasn't just been caused by the blog though.  Having been in not such a good place, I've been prone to snacking at work too.  And of course licking one too many cake bowls.  I mean I'm hardly Morgan Spurlock, stuffing myself full of Maccy D's every day.  But still, I could've been a little more responsible to myself.

So last week, I vowed to myself to make an effort to maintain a food diary, resume my running and reduce the amount of baked goods I've consumed.  At the time I figured it meant no bread.  Mostly because I am far to weak to resist a slice or several of freshly baked bread, slathered with butter.  Yesterday I cracked on that front and realised that I need to follow the old mantra of 'a little of what you fancy does you good'.

Pre-baby, I used to fuel my runs with a piece of coffee cake every now and again.  I swear in that sugar- and caffeine-fuelled state I ran far better than normally.  It was my treat.  And because it was only once a month, I savoured it and the intake was balanced by the running.

I hit on the idea of making a focaccia because for the amount of flour you use, you get a lot of bread.  Plus it can be carved up into bits and popped into the freezer for later.

I was then surprised to find that my beloved Dan Lepard book doesn't have a recipe for focaccia.  It took me a while to recover from that and eventually settle on the Silver Fox's recipe from the Great British Bake Off book.  It was one of the technical challenges in the last series, however it's quite a time consuming recipe and with a full time job, I thought I mightn't get my fix til the weekend.

Dan to the rescue.  He helpfully points out that you can do an overnight rise in the fridge and just reduce the yeast by half.  Excellent.  Which is why I was faffing with my stand mixer at about 5am this morning, getting the first knead and rise underway.

Anyone who has watched Mr Hollywood in action knows that he mixes everything with his hands.  And I mean EVERYTHING.  Even runny icing.  It's something to do with getting the feel for consistency.  Or at least that's what he says.  But I didn't have time for ten minutes of kneading.  Nor the inclination to do so that early in the morning.

Impatient?  Moi?

So into the fridge it went and when I came home, it was trying to escape from the bowl.  The recipe is supposed to make two loaves, but I settled for making one in my large roasting tray.  The dough felt bitterly cold whilst shaping it to go into the tin and I was worried that the second rise would take forever but after two hours, aided by some residual heat from cooking Miss A's tea, it was merrily blowing bubbles and rising nicely.

Hollywood doesn't put the characteristic dimples in his loaf so I followed suit and instead scattered one end with sundried tomatoes and black olives and then sprinkled the whole thing with Maldon sea salt and a good drizzle of olive oil.

Into the oven and oh my gosh my belly was rumbling.  Fresh bread has never smelt so good as it does when you're on a diet.  Twenty five minutes later and I had to cut the first square out and eat it straight away just for research purposes of course!

Luckily, I'd been pretty good all day - eating salads and eschewing the gorgeous and raved about orange and pistachio carrot cake - and so I have plenty of scope to have another piece or two before bed time.  And to those who say that you shouldn't eat carbs after 6pm?  Pah phooey!

You can also find the origina recipe on the BBC's website.  My adaptation is below.  If you do the first rise at room temperature, use two sachets of yeast.

Focaccia, adapted from the Great British Bake Off book

• 350g strong white bread flour
• 150g 00 grade flour (the type you use to make pasta)
• 2 tsp table salt
• 1 sachet dried easy blend yeast
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 400ml cold water 
• olive oil, for drizzling
• Maldon sea salt
• Additional toppings of your choice (optional) such as sundried tomatoes, sliced olives, prosciutto, chorizo, rosemary, thyme etc (but not all of them at once!

• 40cm x 25cm x 5cm baking tray/roasting tin

1. Place the flour, salt, yeast, olive oil and 300ml water into a large bowl. 
2. Gently mix to form a soft dough then knead the bowl for five minutes, gradually adding the remaining water.  The dough will be really soft and sticky so knead gently in the bowl for a further five minutes.  Lightly oil your work surface and knead for a further five minutes.
3. Return to the bowl, cover with clingfilm and place in the fridge for 8-12 hours.
4. Remove the bowl from the fridge and flatten into the baking tray.  Leave to rise at room temperature until doubled in size (this could take anywhere from 1 to 2+ hours depending on how warm your room is)
5. Preheat the oven to 220C/200C fan/Gas 7. Drizzle the loaf with oil, sprinkle with sea salt and your other toppings if using then bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes until golden.  
6. Cool slightly on a wire rack (it gets sweaty if left in the tin) then serve whilst still warm.