Monday is housework day and to
make me feel better about all the housework, it’s also bread baking day. Baking bread has become one of my all-time favourite
things to do. The obsession stems from that smell when I was a child and mum
baked Hot Cross Buns. I think. Then I started getting a bit more serious
about it when I lived in a third world Asian country and real bread was not
available (though many other delights were).
Recently I watched the Julia Child French Chef DVDs and got the tip from
her to keep the dough super moist and not knead it quite so much. So now I follow recipes but I never add as
much flour AND I hardly knead it. My
bread is light and fluffy and delicious.
Today I made two loaves of cinnamon raisin bread – a big one and a
smallish one. Needless to say, I have
gobbled the small one in less time than it took me to bake it.
Sounds good...share a recipe here please! I set myself the goal of making all our bread this year, but it's pretty stock standard bread-maker stuff. still, have managed to do so for most of the time.
ReplyDeleteI can't! Our flour is different so when I use NZ recipes, I nearly halve the flour! It took me a while to work out why my bread was sooo tough.
ReplyDeleteI made facaccia bread last night and mixed dried herbs into the dough then sprinkled parmesan on top. It was like a store bought loaf! (I swear). Of course, keeping it nice and moist. This is the recipe, http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/focaccia-bread/detail.aspx and you might just need to add a bit more flour, but maybe not as I didn't put in as much as they asked for. I also halved it but it was a small loaf (there's not much rising time, it doesn't get big but you can leave it to rise for as long as you want). Don't bother with mozarella, the parmesan was delicious (and you can switch it out for any old topping you desire).
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