Wholemeal Cheese and Ale Bread

I saw an idea recently for a Bara Brith made with stout and walnuts, a brief Google episode lead me to ale and cheese bread recipes and I looked no further! 

This isn’t a yeasted bread so is very quick to put together, it’s simply a matter of folding wet ingredients into dry.  It would make a lovely accompaniment to soup or a Ploughman’s lunch and is absolutely delicious toasted and buttered generously.

For one loaf you need :

200g wholemeal self-raising flour

175g self-raising flour

40g golden caster sugar

150g grated cheddar cheese (extra mature or vintage by preference)

1 ½ tsp mustard powder

1tsp cayenne pepper

1tsp salt

350ml ale (I used Gower Power)

30g grated cheddar to scatter over the top of the loaf before baking

Weigh out the dry ingredients into a mixing bowl and stir together to combine well.  Measure out the ale and add to the mixing bowl, folding gently to bring it all together. 

Spoon into a lined 2lb loaf tin and level off the top.  Scatter over the 30g of grated cheese. 

Bake at 150^oC (300^oF, gas mark 2) for 50 minutes – until a skewer comes out clean.

Welsh - Irish Soda Bread

In reality this is simply a classic Irish soda bread with a bit of bacon, leek and good strong Welsh cheddar thrown in for good measure!  The leek and Welsh cheddar are what make it a Welsh soda bread!

275g wholemeal flour (I used spelt wholemeal for its nutty flavour)

75g plain flour

50g oatmeal

1tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 ½ tsp salt

1tsp sugar

1 egg

1 x 284ml carton buttermilk

100g strong Welsh cheddar

3 rashers of bacon

The green part of a medium leek

Cut the bacon rashers into strips and dry-fry until crisp, leave to cool and then chop finely.

Halve the leek lengthways, half lengthways again and then slice across to dice fairly small and then cook in appx 1tsp of butter for a few minutes until softened and starting to brown.  Add the finely chopped bacon and combine.

Grate the cheese and add to the cooled leek and bacon mixture.

Combine the flours in a mixing bowl with the oatmeal, salt, sugar and bicarb.  Stir in the cheese and bacon mixture.

Beat the egg in a large-ish basin and then add the buttermilk and mix well together then add to the flour and cheese mixture.  Mix together gently and then tip onto a well floured worktop, shape into an oval and pop onto a greased baking sheet.

Brush with a little milk and then scatter a little more grated cheese over the top.

Bake at 190^oC for 50 – 60 minutes. 

(190^oC / 375^oF / gas mark 5)

Baking Day!

I love baking day, I don’t think anything can beat the smell of fresh bread baking!  When I worked I had a breadmaker, I used to set it with the timer so that I had fresh bread on a Saturday morning.   I found it was only OK though.  A lot of the recipes were too sweet for my taste and I hated having a hole in the middle of the loaf where the paddle used to be.  After a while I stopped baking in it and only used it to get the dough to the ready-to-bake stage. Eventually, I even stopped doing that and now make it part in my stand mixer and part by hand. 

I use my Mum’s foolproof recipe, she’s been using it for more years than I’ve been alive, and it was probably the one that her mother used before her!  She tells me that when she was growing up the housewives would make the bread dough in the morning and then send the kids off with the loaves in tins to the bakehouse for the baker to cook their bread after he’d cooked the shop bread.  Life is considerably easier today than in those days though!

The recipe I use couldn’t be easier :

·         1½ lbs strong plain flour (breadmaking flour)

·         1 good tsp salt mixed in with the flour 

·         1oz fresh yeast (I get it from the bakery in my local supermarket)

·         1tsp sugar 

·         Appx ¾ to 1 pint of blood-temperature water, which is to say water that is neither cold nor hot, you should be able to hold your finger in it without feeling cold or hot.

Mix the flour and sugar together and make a well in the mixing bowl. 

Put the yeast and sugar together in a small mixing bowl and cream by pushing the sugar and yeast together until the yeast liquefies.  Add to the flour bowl and rinse the bowl out with the water. 

I can only give an approximate amount of liquid as it depends on the make of flour you are using, and even different batches of flour will absorb different amounts of liquid.  You are looking for a dough consistency that is neither too dry nor too wet so either add more liquid, or more flour, until you get the desired consistency. 

I mix mine in my KitchenAid with the dough hook for around 10 minutes before turning out onto the worktop and kneeding by hand for about 5 minutes more.  I find this very relaxing, almost zen-like!   

Pop the dough into a large bowl, cover with a clean tea-towel and leave in a warm place until the dough has doubled in size.  The time this takes can vary considerably.  In the summer months it was taking less than an hour; this morning it was closer to two hours!  I use three tea-towels and a small hand-towel to cover the dough. 

When it has doubled in size turn back out onto your worktop and knock it back, i.e. kneed it some more.  I cut the dough into three similar sized pieces and kneed them separately, popping each batch into a loaf tin after kneeding.  Cover again with your tea-towel and leave until the dough has doubled in size again. 

Pre-heat your oven to 200^o and bake the loaves for appx 35 minutes.  When you turn the loaves out of the tins tap the bottoms, they will sound hollow when they are cooked.

They freeze beautifully so I always pop two in the freezer.