First of all apologies for taking a short break from my blog. I always have a bit of trouble in the winter getting photos that I’m happy with because of the short days and lack of sun. I also just needed a little break. With all that said and done let me tell you about this wonderful bread.

I have an ongoing love affair with bread. It doesn’t really matter what kind, sweet dark rye, fluffy white, filled with moist fruit, enriched with eggs and butter or peppered with grains and seeds.

In New Zealand we have a brand of bread called Vogels Bread which almost falls into the category of a luxury bread. You can buy it in every supermarket but still it’s one of those things that most people think of as a bit of a treat. It’s dense moist and practically bursting at the seams with seeds and grains. Not only is it very good for you, but has a wonderful flavour.
This is a homemade version of this which comes pretty close to the original even if I do say so myself. If you like Vogels bread you will love this.

This recipe came from the talented Jacqueline on Foodlovers who made a modified version of Jim Lahey’s no knead bread and then adjusted it according to her needs and tastes. It’s really a very flexible recipe and you can add in all kinds of grains and seeds. This one is packed with kibbled rye, kibbled wheat, sesame seeds, oats, linseed, pumpkin seeds and quinoa. There are many more possibilities - spelt, millet, sunflower seeds, chia seeds, barley and on the list goes. Moist, dense and so flavourful. You can pick and choose the grains and seeds that you would like to include.

This wonderful bread is easily made vegan by just omitting the skim milk powder or substituting soy milk powder. I’ve made vegan and non vegan versions and there is really very little difference between the two.

Toast it and use it as the base for fabulous crostini or smother it in thick spreads and jams. One of my favourite ways to eat this type of bread is toasted with a slathering of marmalade. It makes a substantial sandwich too, imagine two lovely thick slices of it packed with salami’s and cheese with crisp, fresh salad vegetables. It’s going to cope with a mountain of fillings and make a real meal.

I am singing the praises of this bread so you’ll try it. If dense, grain packed bread is your thing, you’ll love it as much as I do.

Jacqueline’s Slow Rise Wholegrain Bread

½ cup kibbled wheat
¼ cup kibbled rye
2 Tbsp Quinoa (optional)
3 Tbsp flax seed
1 cup water
Microwave on high for 4 minutes and leave til cool, then refrigerate until you are ready to mix up the bread dough. ( Jacqueline tells me she no longer soaks the grains) but I did with this loaf, so I can’t really comment on any difference it may or may not make)

Place the following dry ingredients in a large bowl and mix well…
4 cups high grade bread flour
1 cup whole meal flour
2 Tblspn’s gluten (I made it without this, but using it will give a different texture)
¼ cup rolled oats
½ cup sunflower seeds (optional)
1/4 cup pumpkin seeds (optional)
3 Tbsp sesame seeds (optional)
2 Tbsp skim milk powder (optional if you want to make it vegan)
1/3 teaspoon instant yeast (yes this is correct)
2 3/4 teaspoons salt
2 1/2 cups fridge cold water
1 tsp wine vinegar
Add the cold water and vinegar to the soaked kibbled grain mixture and then pour into the mixed dry ingredients.
Mix well until a shaggy dough forms.
Cover bowl and dough with a plastic bag and leave in fridge for 3 - 12 hours. Remove from the fridge and leave at room temperature for 12 -18 hours. Leave for longer if cold weather, it needs to have bubbles forming on the top of the dough when ready
When dough is bubbly on top, stir and fold dough over on itself once or twice, using a silicone spatula.

Your dough is going to look something like this. You can see it’s a very sloppy wet dough.

Cover and let rest about 15 minutes.

1. Using a spatula, gently shape dough into a  rough ball, folding it over itself, no kneading necessary.

2. Dust flour over the bottom of the bowl and place the dough seam side down back into the bowl. Cover and let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size.

3. Half an hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 230 deg C and place the cast iron dutch oven and lid in to heat also. Can also place cast iron plate or frypan on rack underneath dutch oven.
(It keeps the oven hot and i think it prevents the bottom of bread from over browning)

4. Tip dough gently into hot dutch oven container, seam side up. Sprinkle quickly with water (or dust with flour) and put lid on pot and place back in oven. (I use a silicone spatula to ease the dough from the sides of the bowl cleanly as I tip it into the bowl. I try to prevent any strands of dough from breaking)

5. Bake 35 minutes then remove lid and bake a further 15 minutes to brown top. Remove from oven, tip bread onto a rack and leave to cool. Cover with a cloth if you like a soft crust, if you like a firm crust - leave exposed to the air.

Do not slice until cool, this is quite important since it is a very dense moist bread. If you try to cut it while it’s hot it will be like trying to slice oatmeal and you will ruin the structure of the bread.

Although this all sounds very involved the actual hands on time is really minimal, it’s really just a matter of mixing it all up and then leaving it to rise with a couple of stirs. My family absolutely adores this bread and the ingredients for it are now a constant in our pantry. I am hoping to find a little time to experiment with a fruit version of this bread.

Thanks Jacqueline for the wonderful recipe! If you would like to check out the very lengthy discussion on this bread you can find it on the foodlovers forums.

Happy Breadmaking!

Crumpets - you cannot get more English than that. The word itself conjures up ladies with fine bone china cups of fragrant tea balanced delicately on saucers with their ankles demurely crossed. Quiet and polite conversation ensues while Thomas and Edward play croquet on the lawn.

Well .. not in our house. I mentioned quietly, I’m going to make crumpets. A very loud YUM was the response. They were not eaten with tea in china cups, but hot out of the pan at the bench with golden syrup drizzled from the bottle. In fact I think Kit ate his over the sink so he would not have to bother with a plate. Isaac actually contemplated no golden syrup for a moment so he would not have to wash his hands afterwards. Yes, we’re a rather uncouth lot our family.

The origin of crumpets has been dated back as far as the 1300’s, with something called crompid cake, which food historians seem to think was the humble crumpets first appearance. Crumpets are not the same as an English muffin. They are quite different and have a totally different cooking method and texture. Some crumpet recipes have eggs in them, while others do not. The one I’ve given here is a recipe without eggs, and easily made vegan with the use of soy milk.

I had a bit of an interesting time making these. I weighed and measured out my ingredients carefully - but I had a feeling that my batter was too thick. It had been a while since I’d made them and I could not quite remember what the batter was supposed to be like. I went ahead anyway. Once I started to cook them I decided the batter was definitely too thick and added extra liquid. I realised at that point that my kitchen scale had been resting on the lid of the cookie jar and consequently I had measured way too much flour into the mix. Easily rectified though with the extra liquid.

Lesson learned. Your batter needs to be thick, but should spread to the edges of the rings that you use to mould your crumpets in on it’s own and the little bubbles on top should appear within the first minute or so of cooking. If you are not getting many little holes in your crumpets add a little extra water to your crumpet batter. Also as the batter stands while you cook you may need to add additional water since it thickens a little.

If you don’t have special crumpet rings you can still make these. Try using high sided cookie cutters, tuna cans with the bottom and top cut out (be careful on sharp edges), egg poaching rings or food moulds. I used a combination of egg poaching rings and food moulds for these. If you can, choose something that is 2-3 inches across that is roughly the right size for a crumpet. Make sure you grease your pan and your rings after each crumpet. This is important or they will stick to the rings. You can use a little cooking spray or butter.

English Crumpets

(recipe from Bill Granger - Sydney Food)

Makes 16-25 crumpets depending on your mould size)

• 1 1/2 cups of milk
• 1 1/2 tspns sugar
• 7g (1/4 oz)sachet of dried instant yeast
• 375g/12 oz flour
• 1/2 tspn baking soda
• 200ml/6 1/2 fl oz water
• pinch of salt

Pour the milk into a saucepan and heat until just warm. Transfer into a bowl and add the sugar and yeast. Allow to stand for 10 minutes or until the milk starts to bubble.

Sift the flour and salt into a bowl and make a well in the centre. Add the milk/yeast mixture to the flour and beat with an electric beater until completely smooth.

Cover in plastic wrap and stand in a warm place for 1- 1 1/2 hours until doubled in volume and full of air bubbles.

Mix the baking soda with the water and use your electric beater to combine this with the batter.

Heat a heavy based frying pan or griddle over a medium  heat and grease with a little butter.

Grease your crumpet moulds also - keep them greased throughout the cooking. Place your moulds on the hot surface and place 2-3 Tblspns of mixture inside the mould. Your first 2-3 crumpets will be a little trial and error to get your desired thickness. Your mixture will rise in the moulds.

Within a short period of time your crumpets should get small bubbles all over the surface that begin to break. It will look like this.

Once the surface is covered in broken bubbles and a light skin has formed you can remove your crumpet from the mould, turn gently and cook on the other side.

Remove from the pan and snuggle your crumpets in a clean tea towel while you cook the rest.

The crumpets can be eaten fresh or toasted.

Some ideas for topping your crumpets:

Crumpets are great used for either sweet or savoury toppings

• Honey
• Golden syrup
• Jams
• Nutella
• Top with cheese and bacon and grill
• Tomato and fresh mozzarella
• spaghetti and cheese
• meatballs and cheese
• refried beans and salsa
• sloppy Joe toppings.

This is not the kind of thing that I envisage people making regularly unless you have a lot of time at home. But to make now and then on a lazy weekend, they are perfect.

Yes I am indeed going to add to the wealth of hot cross bun recipes out there on the internet. Slightly late, but there’s still a couple of days left to make these. I love hot cross buns and it’s simply not Easter time without them. Year after year the hot cross buns available in the supermarkets are getting doughier and less fruit filled. They collapse when you eat them. Bakery hot cross buns are often very good, but a little too expensive for my liking. Two buns for $3.50? I can bake more than a dozen for that price!

I hold my purse strings tight when it comes to buying baked goods. No matter how good they look, I always think I can do it at home so much cheaper, if you ever see me buying something from a bakery, you know I must be really tired or at least 20 miles away from my kitchen.

The smell that hot cross buns fill the kitchen when they bake transports me back to my childhood. It smells just like Easter to me. Cinnamon, allspice and nutmeg - surely some of the most wonderful smelling spices on this earth.

Hot cross buns evoke memories of Middlemarch and getting my horse ready for hunting (no bunnies were killed!). Mum would always have some ready to have with a hot drink along with the inevitable bacon and egg pie when we were done with the horseriding and ready for a break.

I was always envious of our neighbours who had home made buns each year, so this year I finally decided to take the plunge and make some. The result? One dozen buns consumed in roughly 20 minutes. I guess they worked out ok!

Everyone has a particular version they like, chocolate, with peel, without peel, with currants, without currants. It’s impossible to keep everyone happy, but this is the version I like. It’s slightly adapted from Karen’s recipe on Citrus and candy. While you’re there take a look around her blog, she has a beautiful selection of recipes.

Hot Cross Buns with Glacé Citrus Peel

(makes 12)

• 310ml warmed milk
• 60g caster sugar
• 16g instant dried yeast (about 4 teaspoons)
• 600g plain flour, sifted
• 1 tsp salt
• 1.5 tsps ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp allspice
• 1 tspn mixed spice
  
• 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
• 60g butter, softened
• 1.5 cups of raisins / sultanas
• 1/2 cup of currants
• 1/4 of a cup of glace citrus peel
  
• 2 eggs

To finish

• 60g plain flour
• 60ml water
• 2 Tbl apricot jam, warmed in a pan over low heat and strained

Method

1. In a bowl, whisk together the sugar, milk and yeast together until sugar has dissolved. Cover and set aside for 10 minutes or until it becomes frothy.

2. Mix the flour, salt and ground spices in a large bowl. With your fingers, rub the butter into the flour until mixed and crumbly. Stir in the raisins/sultanas, egg and frothy yeast mixture until combined.

3. On a lightly floured surface, knead the bread dough for about 5 minutes until smooth and elastic. Lightly grease another large, clean bowl, place the dough in and turn to coat the surface with grease. Cover in clingwrap and leave in a warm, draught-free place for 45 minutes or until the dough has doubled in size.

4. When ready, remove the clingwrap and use your fist to punch down the dough  Give it a quick knead until smooth and divide into 12.

5. Place the buns into a greased 20 x 30cm baking tray, cover with clingwrap and leave in warm place to rise for 15 minutes. Preheat the oven to 200°C.

6. Whisk together the plain flour and water to a smooth paste. Pipe crosses on top of the buns and bake at 200°C for 10 minutes.

Reduce heat to 180°C bake for a further 15 minutes. Buns are ready when it sounds hollow when you tap the tops.

7. Brush with warmed apricot jam while the buns are still warm.

It’s not Easter until there are hot cross buns in the house.

PS. I took half a dozen of these to my parents today, guess where they were off to? Middlemarch - to see my niece riding her horse.. now I feel old! But hey I’ve got my hot cross buns, so I’m happy!

I looked at my lovely crop of thriving beetroot growing in the garden and I wondered if I could come up with something slightly different for it. My father planted the seeds and gave me the seedlings when they were about an inch high. Now look at them!

There is always something incredibly satisfying about growing something, harvesting it and then making something delicious with it.

We often have pre-conceived ideas about how certain things taste and how they should be prepared and only if they meet our particular set of criteria will we eat them. Although the idea of beetroot bread was not really something that I’d considered before, I could not help myself .. the thought of making bread which had a hot pink dough was just too much for me to resist. I had to make it.

Look at this - there is no food colouring in there, that’s just how it is! The colour of the dough is really amazing - I could not take my eyes off it when I was kneading it. It was like squishing a giant raspberry marshmallow. I had playdough flashbacks and felt the urge to make all kinds of funny things with it.

I’m really glad I was brave enough to try this bread, because we all loved it. As long as you like beetroot you’ll enjoy the bread. The bread has a slight beetroot taste, but certainly nothing overpowering and in fact quite complementary to sandwhich fillings. I made a second loaf very soon after we devoured the first, to use as sandwich bread for the next day. While beetroot is in season this bread will be made regularly in our house.

There was no recipe which really drew me to it that I could find online or in my books, so I came up with something based around this one here at Travel Flower Children. The bread has a soft crust rather than a crisp one.

Beetroot & Sunflower Seed Bread

Please note: The quantities of water and flour are very much approximate in this recipe, because it will depend on the size of your beetroot and just how juicy it is. Don’t be scared to add a little more flour if you need to. This bread is very forgiving. The sunflower seeds are a wonderful addition, they add some texture to a very soft bread.

Tip: Use rubber gloves to cut and grate your beetroot - or you will have stained hands.

• 1 medium beetroot peeled and grated raw
• 2 tspns of sugar
• 1 Tblspn of olive oil
• 1 tspn of salt
• 300 mls of warm water - just slightly warmer than skin temperature
• 1/2 cup of hulled sunflower seeds or green pumpkin seeds.
• one package of instant yeast (8 grams instant yeast- 25g/0.6 oz compressed yeast- 2 1/4 tspns active dry yeast)
• between 500g/16oz and 700g/1 1/2 lbs  of flour plus more for the work surface
• Milk or water to glaze
• Sesame seeds to sprinkle on the top if wished.

Place your warm water, oil, and sugar in a bowl with your yeast and leave until foamy (about 5 mins). Then add your sunflower seeds, grated beetroot, flour and salt

If you are using instant yeast you can just mix it in with your water, oil and sugar and add your other ingredients adding flour and salt last.

Stir together initially with a spoon (this is so you do not get bright red hands) until your dough starts to come together. Tip out on the work surface and knead together to form an elastic dough - about 10 minutes kneading. If your dough is very sticky do not be afraid to add more flour while you are kneading. Your dough should be slightly sticky, but still be able to be kneaded with relative ease. You can use a Kitchen aid for the kneading if you wish, but you will miss out on the playdough experience if you do that!

Set aside in a warm place in a covered bowl to rise until doubled in size - roughly 40 mins to an hour.

Punch down dough and form into the shape of your choice.

Leave to rise at room temperature for about 30 minutes. When well risen brush with a little milk or water and sprinkle black sesame seeds on the top if wished. 

Bake  in a 200C/392F oven.

If you choose to braid your bread into a long loaf it will take roughly 20 minutes cook time. If you place your dough in a loaf tin it will take closer to 40 minutes to cook through to the centre of the loaf. Your cook time will vary depending on the shape. Test for doneness by tapping on the bottom of the loaf it will sound hollow when cooked.

Leave your bread to cool on a rack and slice when cool. This is a soft-ish  loaf, if you try to cut it when it’s too hot it will be doughy. The sunflower seeds add a fantastic texture to the bread, they were a perfect addition.

This was quite an experience making this, the dough was so wonderfully pink, and each person that came into the kitchen uttered some kind of exclamation depending on their age - ranging from “Cool Mummy!” to “Holy *&^%# how did you get the dough that colour?!”

I love this bread!

There is a bread baking obsession going on in our house at the moment. I know you’ve only seen the bagels that Ryan made, but we have plans! Oh yes we have plans. Ryan and I made the Ciriola together, the kneading by hand was a two person job. Just occasionally I wish I had a Kitchen Aid with a dough hook, this was one of those times. Kneading bread is a surprisingly good workout!

Most bread now comes packaged in plastic and tastes like nothing - just a mouthful of air. Bread in my childhood came in half loaves, crusty and full of flavour. Wrapped in brown paper and secured with a single piece of tape or now and then tied with string - not sweating in a plastic bag. Mum would send me to the dairy to pick up a loaf of fresh bread and I’d worm my finger through the crust and pull out the warm insides. I’m pretty sure I thought mum would not notice, if I just kept the crust mostly intact… kids are not that smart sometimes.

I saw these beautiful rolls and I just had to make them. Ciriola means candle in Italian. These little loaves are hard to find information on in English and the translations seemed somewhat inaccurate. One of the pages I translated told me that the loaves were “full of crumbs” I have no idea what that is supposed to mean?! So I don’t have a lot to offer you in the way of information. I do know that they are used for sandwiches.

These loaves are enriched with extra virgin olive oil. If you have some time to make bread; ciriola are crusty on the outside, light on the inside and each warm mouthful makes it worth the time to make them.

La Ciriola

Recipe from the scrumptious Broxholm Road Blog  - check it out - it’s wonderful!

• 1 kg Strong White Flour
• 550g water (divided use)
• 45g extra virgin olive oil
• 25g fresh yeast
• 20g salt
• 1 tspn sugar

Dissolve 1 tspn of sugar in 150g of the warm water.

Crumble in the fresh yeast and whisk to mix through. Pour the yeast mixture into a large bowl or into the bowl of your stand mixer with the hook attachment.

Add the olive oil and the flour - slowly add in the remainder of the water and sprinkle in the salt last.

Mix the dough for about 20 minutes in the stand mixer or knead the dough by hand for roughly 30 minutes. The dough should pass the windowpane test.

Place in an oiled bowl and coat the bread lightly with a slick of olive oil, cover and put in a warm place to rise for roughly 2 hours.

Turn the dough out and cut into twelve pieces weighing roughly 150 grams each.

Roll out each piece of dough to a sheet roughly 30 cm by 10 cm. You want to have it narrow at the ends and widest in the middle. Like an elongated egg shape.

Roll up into a roll and transfer to a parchment lined baking sheet. Give the rolls room to expand. Leave to rise for another 40-45 minutes.

I left our rolls a little longer than this and lost some of the definition in the lovely curly bits at the end.

Preheat the oven to 220C/428F

Just before placing your rolls in the oven slash the top long ways with a sharp knife. You can use an egg wash if you like. I put the egg wash on some and left some without.

Cook your rolls for roughly 20 minutes until golden.

Leave to cool on a rack if you wish or you can do what we did. Serve them burning hot from the oven .. burn your fingers, juggle them around a bit, spread bits of crackly crust everywhere and finally breathe in the scent that only fresh bread has.. devour with copious amounts of real butter or olive oil.

Of the twelve loaves  I managed to salvage two to take to Mum and Dad, the rest were gone faster than I could blink. They were everything fresh bread should be.