goat cheese, honey and spring onion loaf

First bread in dublin...at last. And I wanted it to use one of the books I bought recently and in this way strike back and balance the mediterranean influence coming from Spain! :-)

So I have followed a recipe from the book Bread Revolution by Duncan Glendinning & Patrick Ryan. Small note here: Patrick has his bakery and bread school, The Firehouse, in Heir Island, in Skibereen, West Cork, that I have to say it is one of the most beautiful areas in Ireland. So a few friends and I are going to one of the bread course on the 7th of October. Can't wait to spend the weekend there, stay in the island with my friends and meet Patrick. I will let you know all the details here.

Back to the recipe, originally was blue cheese, honey and walnut load, but I didn't have some of the ingredients and ended it up in goat cheese, honey and spring onion loaf.  I had another small problem: as I am in the middle of moving from Belfast to Dublin, and in Dublin to one to another house, most (lets say almost all) my baking equipment is in self store, including my scales. So I did the recipe a bit by eye so the quantities are not exactly like the book. I put here anyway the ones you can find in the book:

- 500g strong white bread flour
- 10g sea salt
- 10g dried yeast
- 260ml water (I used almost 450ml I guess)
- 2tsp honey
- 80g goat cheese
- 2 stems spring onion


Mixed all the ingredients without the cheese and spring onion for 10 minutes, then added those 2 ingredients well. Left the dough to prove for 2 hours and an half (it needed less time, but I went for some shopping and couldn't make it before), then knocked it down and made one ball (in the book you will find they make 2) and left it to prove for another hour. After that, oven at 230 °C for 10 minutes and another 25 minutes at 190 °C.

The result was honestly a very good bread, with pieces of the strong cheese and the flavour of the onions all over the place, but not overpowering, and a soft crumb.

And well, when I was waiting for the bread in the oven, I couldn't help not to make some more butter, this time a dill and gomasio butter. I rleally liked the combination, dill is probably my favourite herb and gomasio gives that nutty sesame flavour to the butter. they go both well together. So here you can see how I taste the bread with the butter. No good if you are on diet!

blueberry scones

Freezing temperatures in Belfast (I am talking about minus 13). Very cold, although very beautiful at the same time. The snow from last week is still all around, not going anywhere, although became into ice. But it is white christmas.

So we these temperatures we can not really do much outside and we really want to be inside

with your heating on. And with a tea, and something with the tea. And what better than a nice and just baked scones.

I made these scones using buttermilk for the first time. I have to say that I liked what I got: powerful aroma, something between yogurt and cheese; the dough was quite moist and not easy to work with, but the result was very soft and tender scones. I add this time some blueberries. Gives a nice flavor but especially a wonderful color. Most of the blueberries break after baking and spread the blue color. You can eat them only with your eyes. Judge yourself.

Ingredients:

450 g self rising white flour

100 g caster sugar

1/2 tsp salt

175 g butter

250 ml buttermilk

150 g fresh blueberries

I mixed the dry ingredients and the added the butter and mixed until the consistency was similar to breadcrumbs. Then I added the buttermilk and mixed well. you don't have to work the dough much but be sure that all the ingredients are mix well and the dough is even. I made eight scones with the dough, cut them with a glass, and brushed the top with buttermilk. Oven preheated at 220 degrees and baked for 17 minutes.

I couldn't help eating one. So put the kettle, made a nice tea and spread some butter on top of each half when they were still warm.

Just a perfect evening. Almudena, as you like scones so try this recipe or just add some berries to the recipe you already has.

Toasted bread and marmite

Finally I had the bread for breakfast today even though the ulster fry was a strong temptation.

So I toasted two slices and made a tea. In one of the slices I spread butter and in the other marmite (yeast extract). I never tried it before but last week I saw a documentary in BBC where they tried to make home made yeast extract: basically they kill the yeast with salt (one thing that bread makers try to avoid religiously every time they make the dough) and to help the process they heat up the mix, so the result is a dark brown and very (very) salty sticky paste, with umami qualities. It is usually eaten as a savoury spread in bread and toasts or to give flavour to stews as a vegetarian alternative to beef extract.

It was delicious with the butter, and interesting with the marmite, as even very thin layer was enough to give a very strong and salty flavour to the bread.