There's no knead for that...

Hahahaha........am I the only person laughing at the hilarious food pun?

Much as I can appreciate the care and attention that goes into kneading and shaping a hand-made loaf......sometimes I just can't be bothered doing it. Enter *da-da-da-da-daa-daaaa* this fab little no-knead loaf.

The recipe was developed by a little lady called Doris Grant in the 1940's, if you google 'Doris Grant loaf' you get tons of hits. Okay I accept, not many of you will be joining in on that one.

• 2tbsp olive oil, plus extra for greasing
• 700g wholemeal flour
• 200g white flour
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• 7g fast action yeast
• 850ml warm water

Grease 2 large loaf tins (if you don't have loaf tins you can use any tin with a side 3cm of higher).
Mix the dry ingredients in a big bowl, then add the oil and water. Mix well with a spoon, at this point it will look highly unappetising. Divide the mix into your tins, then cover with tea towels and leave to rise (doesn't have to be in a warm place) until the mix has doubles in size. Mine took ages because my kitchen was chilly that day, about 3 hrs. Be patient otherwise your bread will be too heavy.

Cook the bread in a hot 200degree oven for 40 mins, until they are crispy and golden. Then take them out of their tins and give them another 10mins in the oven. Give the base a tap, if it sounds hollow, it's ready.

It comes out fairly dense, a good healthy bread that freezes really well.

I have been enjoying mine toasted with avocado/lime juice/sesame seeds/salt/pepper

Italian night with Big Momma, CB + BB

After scoring big on the food front when my brother came from Italy for Xmas we had to have a go at an Italian-ish evening. We soon discovered that this ended in us stuffed to the gunnels with carbohydrate and having to undo top buttons.

To begin we had a nice little antipasti plate: Bresaola from my bro :o) , chorizo from errrm Spain, some nice little mozzarella balls with basil/olive oil/parmesan, then I made foccacia with a cumin/coriander/salt crust. Foccacia as taught by Liz on the Bread Making day at the school.

Next up....pizza :o)

We used a Jamie recipe which you can read in full here in our piccie CB helpfully demonstrates the flour well method. Look at the determination in his face, grrrrr mix it!

Him hungry ug!

After much friendly 'discussion' re. toppings we went for a few options: red onion/mozz/chorizo, mozz/tom/basil (me being boring.....ahem...classic) and a meaty feast option aswell.

MIdnight snack - welsh rarebit

Stokesy and I had a hankering for a little late-night sustenance so decided to try a traditional Welsh Rarebit, it is essentially cheese on toast for people with too much time of their hands.

Here's what you need:

• 4 slices bread
• big knob of butter
• 1 leek, finely sliced
• 2 handfuls of grated cheddar - we used the IOM Creamery black peppercorn one
• 2 tsp worcester sauce
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp mustard

Toast your bread while you make the topping. Sweat the leeks in the butter til soft. In a bowl combine the rest of the ingredients, then add the leeks, it should be a mushy paste (ours looked rather unappetising at this point). Then just spread the mix over your toast and lash it under the grill til it's lovely golden brown.

I couldn't decide which sauce to have so tried tommy sauce, brown sauce and Reggae Reggae with it. The Reggae was top of the list for me. Hey check out my super-glam slippers, Nigella you have no competition from me.

Bread Making - Bertinet method and Lebanese flatbread

So we're back from London, I'm sad because we had such a great time and really treated ourselves to loads of gorgeous meals. Now it's back to the grindstone!

In her Bread Making class last week Liz recommended Andrew Whitely's 'Bread Matters' as essential reading so I got a copy from the library last week. The combination of better knowledge of what exactly goes into a commercial loaf plus Liz's tuition making it look so easy has made me more motivated to make bread for home.

Luckily for me Stokesy Jnr and Snr got rained off at work so I had an assistant in the shape of Stokesy Snr. First we made a 500g batch of 1:1 white:wholemeal using the Bertinet method. Then we had a go at lamajun, a lebanese flatbread I had seen in the Ballymaloe cookbook awhile ago and had been lingering on my must-do list. I'm sure you all have a must-cook list on your kitchen wall?? Oh just me then. Once I've got my new magazines/books in I run through all the cookery literature I own and pick out loads of new things to make over the month. What a thrilling life I lead!
The flat bread was simple: 275g white flour, 225g natural yoghurt mixed together to form a soft dough. I added a little extra water as ours was too dry. Portion into 50g chunks, then roll each chunk out til about 10cm across, you'll need plenty of flour on your worktop. Then dry fry your flatbreads on both sides in a preheated frying pan.

Once then are golden on each side you add this lovely topping: 1tsp thyme leaves, 2 tbsp toasted sesame seeds, 1/2tsp sea salt, 2 tbsp olive oil. Mix the topping in a little bowl then use a pastry brush to brush over each flatbread. We dunked ours in hoummous but all agreed that it would be nice Italian style with garlic butter and tomato sauce. YUM!

Stokesy Snr just called back round to shape the loaves with me, I'm just waiting for them to prove for the 2nd time......hang on.....they're in the oven now. Woohooo! Lovely bread in 20-ish minutes :o) There they are up at the top of this post

Bread Day @ Relish

A new class at the cookery school......yippee! Sunday was Bread Making Day with Liz from artisan bakery The Good Loaf. Our participants were: Angela and sister Jan, Marie and son Robbie, plus Andrea and Michelle.

The day began with two different methods for making a basic white loaf 1. The traditional British knead and fold 2. The noisy French twist and slap!

Next up: a simple 'no knead' foccacia topped with tomatoes and basil. Perfect for a party buffet!

After coffee break we discussed the essential bits of kit while making scones. Robbie has a dairy allergy so substituted the butter/milk and still got a great result.

Then it was time for my favourite bit. Shaping the dough. Liz showed us a huge variety from 1 simple white bread mix, let's hope I can remember them all: Baguette, Epi (a baguette variation, shown below), Simple Loaf, Twisted Breadsticks, Breadshots, Fougasse and Rolls

If you fancy a go, Liz is booked for a return visit on May 23rd 2010.....give me a call (07624 453324) or email info@relish.co.im to book a place

Bread Day in the Relish Test Kitchen

I watched an old Jamie Oliver tv show whilst spending some quality time bonding with my sofa at the weekend. He made gorgeous twister bread with chargrilled veg filling.....it looked so good that I had to make it. Stokesy will happily eat bread all day every day so I knew I had a willing test audience.

I had a second batch of dough left over so did foccacia with rapeseed oil and dried herbs. It came out a bit too doughy for my liking, so it looks like I'll have to retest......oh well!

Jurassic Foot...raaaarrghhhh!!!

Leafing through the internet I came across The Townmill Bakery this wicked little place down in Dorset. It combines an artisan bakery with a cafe. They included some recipes on the site including this one for Fruit and Nut Bread aka Jurassic Foot.

I loved the shape so gave it a go. They have loads of bread recipes on their website, definitely have a look. I feel a research trip is required :o)

Chilli bread

I wandered lonely as a cloud.......around the internet and found this recipe for Chilli Bread on another blog. I usually get all my bread from Liz at The Good Loaf but she had very rudely gone on holiday for a couple of weeks, leaving Stokesy and I high and dry. I just can't face eating commercially produced bread anymore so I had to roll up my sleeves and do the deed myself. I was absolutely made up with the result

375g wholemeal strong flour

375g white strong flour

3 teaspoons salt

2-3 teaspoons chilli flakes

7g sachet of dry yeast

Mix all dry ingredients in a bowl

Add 450ml water (at room temperature)

Combine into dough & knead until elastic - around 5/10 minutes

Leave to rise in bowl (cover with damp cloth) for 2 hours

Knock back & shape into 'tin' shaped & pop in a floured tin

Leave to rise again for 45 minutes

Cook for 15 minutes at 230 ° c then for 20/25 minutes at 200 ° c until cooked

Leave to cool on rack

Day 2 @ Ashburton - Making Bread

Here is Darrin, our fearless leader preparing the bread dough. We learnt the art of getting the dough to the right stickiness (stickier than I expected hmmmm), then gave it a good kneading, then did this little stretching manouver (the dough, not us. Although we did learn the chef wiggle and flick, more on that later). The stretch is in the photo below...

Then we left it to rise, knocked it back, then shaped it into rolls. Below are Darrin's. You can see mine with the soup in the next post

Easy Friday night - Soup, scones + cake

Basil is home........yippee! He's been bike training in Lanzarote so to welcome him home we required a carb fest. I made some cute little cheesy soda scones, as taught to me by 'She who Must be Obeyed' (aka Darina Allen, you don't mess with Darina!) at Ballymaloe. I added some parsley to the dough for a little change.

450g plain flour

1 tsp bicarb of soda

1 tsp salt

500ml milk with a dash of lemon or 500ml buttermilk

2tbsp fresh parsley, finely chopped

Preheat oven to 230. Sieve together the dry ingredients, mixing thoroughly. Add the herbs now and mix again. Make a well in the middle and pour in most of the milk. Hold your hand stiff and shaped like a claw and gently mix the ingredients together. Handle the mix as little as possible. Tip out onto a floured surface, gently pat the mixture together. Cut into little shapes, then place on a floured baking sheet. into the oven for 12-15mins, until their bottoms sound hollow when you tap them.

We had the scones with Leek and Potato Soup, with Chocolate Amaretti Cake for puds...........I know, again..........I'm addicted!