I've based this recipe on Dan Lepard's Short and Sweet suggestion for an easy white loaf. So I've used 400g strong white flour, one sachet of dried yeast, one teaspoon of salt, and 300ml of warm water. As he suggested, I've added 200g of strong cheddar to boost the flavour. I roughly mixed the ingredients together and left the wet scraggy mess for 10 mins before kneading for 5 mins in our food mixer. The resulting dough is very elastic and springy. I am going to leave it for 3 hours as I normally do, although Dan Lepard recommends 2 separate kneads by hand and then leaving for 45 mins on a floured tray. A good tip that I've picked up from him is if you are kneading by hand, to oil hands and board as this does make it a lot easier to get the dough from your hands. 
Deal and bread making or rather milling, has a long history in these parts. The excellent book "Deal Sad Smuggling Town" by Gregory Holyoake tells how the blockades of ports during the Napoleonic wars led to corn ceasing to be imported. The cost of wheat rose dramatically and the working class families who subsisted on a diet of bread, cheese and beer suffered. As the surrounding countryside of Deal was rich in wheat fields, poorer inhabitants learned to be self sufficient. But the main reason for the presence of over 7 windmills in Deal and Walmer was due to the Royal Navy and Merchant Marines, who were anchored near the Downs and would take on flour for fresh bread and biscuits. Some millers took advantage of this market and sold the flour at exceptional prices, leading to complaints from the ship owners. This monoply was crushed through the enlightened approach from the Deal Mayor, Thomas Oakley and a syndicate who in 1787 sold their own flour at a competitive price.There is still a working mill in River, near Dover, which I've yet to find open. But, I hope to do so and will then source a regional bread recipe, perhaps one used by the Navy to supply the sailors.
This bread smells fantastic when cooking, and only needed 30 mins in an oven at 200 degrees centigrade.
You may be using a lot of yeast there, I think the Dan Lepard recipe from Short & Sweet calls for 1 tsp of fast action yeast - that's really a level 5ml kitchen measuring spoon, or a slightly rounded teaspoon - a full sachet is likely to be rather more than that (depends slightly on sachet size, most are 7g but I've seen 5g, 10g and I think even 15g sachets). The quantity of cheese may be slowing the dough down, but with the amount of yeast you're using, I wonder if you may be leaving it too long before baking - are you getting much oven spring (i.e. is the loaf coming out of the oven notceably bigger than when it went in), or does your loaf look a little "flat" when baked ?
ReplyDeleteHello, I responded on iphone but want to make sure that you get this. I think that you are right, a combination of 7g sachet of dried yeast, and long rise, led to the loaf being very elastic. When baked it is quite flat, as seen in the pix. But on the plus side the taste is good, it has a cheesy crust and is chewy. I am not following Dan Lepard exactly as I want to use my food processor (which is a rather new exciting gadget for me). So you think less time to rise would give a better result?
DeleteHi again Karen,
ReplyDeleteYes, the three adaptations you're making are (1) you're not doing the three short hand-kneads (2) you're using a food mixer for a single knead and (3) you're baking in a tin. What I'd be inclined to do to fit with that is:
after your machine mixing, leave the dough in the mixer bowl, but with the mixing hook out of the dough. Try a 45 minute rise at that stage. Then shape it and put it into your tin (if you get any sticking, line the tin with non-stick baking parchment). Then give it about another 45 minutes, or until it's increased in volume by half. Then slash the top of the loaf lengthways, and bake it.
You may find you can reduce the amount of yeast you're using, but the main thing is, when you adapt a recipe you will to some extent need trial & error to find what works best! But I think this may give you a more "risen" loaf when it comes out of the oven.
Thanks so much David. I will try all of those suggestions for next week's Friday loaf. I am planning on using raisens and cinnamon to sweeten.
DeleteHi Karen, I'll try to pop back to see how that one turns out! Spices often slow the action of yeast (one reason why some people struggle with making Hot cross buns), but the key thing is, once it's in the tin, let the dough increase in volume by half. Less than that and you won't have a fully-risen loaf, much more and the dough may be so near to exhaustion that there's nothing left to respond to the oven's heat. The time it takes to get to that "risen by half" point will depend on the recipe and other variables, but it's a more reliable guide than leaving the dough for a specific amount of time.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDelete