Fennel & Cumin Spelt Bread Rolls - adventures with spelt flour

As I mentioned in this previous post, we moved home recently and left our rented house with its nice tidy white kitchen behind.  The house we bought is a fixer upper and most of it is still a building site, covered in plaster dust, with half of the upstairs bathroom missing and no flooring anywhere other than in two bedrooms.  Most of our belongings are still in boxes (and have been since the start of June), and the novelty is wearing off very quickly – I just want it to be finished dammit!  I’ll be sharing photos of my “new” kitchen soon, and bragging about my husband’s recently-acquired DIY skills.

Soft-focus food porn? 

 
I actually made these bread rolls way back in June for a Jubilee picnic, but the memory card with the photos has been packed away since then and I’ve only just managed to find it.  Plus our broadband has been all over the place due to the move, and I’ve just managed to get my iMac set up again.  So I have a bit of catching up to do! 

 

First assemble your ingredients, Delia style

 

I made these to try out some new spelt flour from Sharpham Park, who have a lovely range of products made from organic spelt, including breakfast cereals with various flavours like bran flakes with berries (which I also tried, but it didn’t even make it as far as the blog because I scoffed the lot very quickly – it’s delicious), speltotto (like risotto – obviously – but using spelt instead of rice, which I do intend to try as I love risotto but like the nutty flavour of spelt) and of course the range of flour, which I was rather impressed with.  I get genuinely excited when I try out a new flour.  Is that a bit weird?  I’m sure I’m not the only one.

This recipe is adapted from one by Nigel Slater.

Fennel & Cumin Spelt Rolls

Ingredients:    

250g Sharpham Park wholegrain spelt flour
250g strong white bread flour

350ml warm water

Heaped tsp dried yeast
1 tsp Maldon salt, crushed in a pestle & mortar

1 tsp fennel seeds

1 tsp cumin seeds

First add the yeast to the warm water and give it a bit of a stir about.  Leave for 10 minutes or so till it starts to foam up.  

Toast the fennel and cumin seeds in a dry frying pan over a high heat for a couple of minutes – keep them moving around with a wooden spoon to stop them burning.  Pour the toasted seeds into a pestle and mortar and bash them up a bit.  

A great stress reliever.

Now throw everything into a big bowl, give it a really good mix around until it all comes together, turn it out onto a worktop* and knead, knead, knead until you have a lovely smooth stretchy dough, which you then want to roll into a tight ball, place into an oiled bowl, cover with a piece of oiled cling film or a floury tea towel, and leave for an hour or so until it doubles in size.

 

Proving...

Now preheat the oven to 250 degrees C, and put a roasting tin or something similar in the bottom of the oven.

Turn the dough out, gently push all the air out of it, give it a quick knead and divide into 8 pieces.  Roll each piece into a little ball, place on a floured baking tray quite close together, and cover with a tea towel.  Leave for another 40 minutes or so until they’ve puffed up and have probably stuck together.  In the meantime, boil the kettle.

Now put your little rolls in the oven, and pour some water from the kettle into the roasting tin and shut the oven door.  The steam will give your rolls a lovely crust and help them rise.

Bake for about 15 minutes, or until they sound hollow when tapped underneath.  Cool on a wire rack for a bit, but do try and eat them while they’re still warm, preferably with some strong cheese and some cold meat like slices of pepperoni or chorizo.

---

I have to say I really did like these little rolls.  They are somehow chewier than bread made entirely from wheat flour, and despite being small are really quite substantial. 

Yum.

Sharpham Park products are available from selected Sainsburys and online at their website, and the bran flakes have been on my shopping list several times now. 

 

Maple pecan bread - just to prove I'm still alive

Yes, yet again my blog is sad and neglected. Somehow the days just ran away with me in October, and I didn't get done anything I had planned. We seemed to be doing something every weekend and I managed to miss all the blog events I had planned to take part in. I am even more out of touch with everyone else's blogs than usual; currently in Google Reader I have 742 unread items. Shocking.

Anyway, just to ease myself back in to blogging, here's a recipe I made recently and actually managed to photograph. It's a recipe I got from my patisserie teacher in catering college (I have no idea where he got it from so if you recognise it, let me know) and it's one I particularly like but don't make very often because it's not exactly what you'd call healthy...

Maple & Pecan Bread

Ingredients

100ml milk (I use semi skimmed)

140ml sour cream or double cream

1 egg

25g butter

5 tbsp maple syrup

½ tsp salt

450g strong white flour

1 ½ tsp dried yeast (a 7g sachet is perfect, if you use those)

100g chopped pecan nuts

My method is to throw the lot into the Kenwood Chef/Kitchenaid and let it do the work for me, but of course you can do it by hand, in which case you should rub the butter into the flour and add the yeast and salt, mix together the milk, cream and maple syrup, add this to the dry ingredients and bring it all together to form a dough. Knead until it feels smooth, springy and lovely, and then knead in the pecan nuts (I find it easier this way than to add them right at the start).

Either way, when you've got your dough, form it into a tight ball, place it in an oiled bowl, cover with a tea towel, shower cap (top tip! Pinch them from hotel rooms), cling film or whatever, and leave to prove until it's doubled in size – roughly an hour.

When it's doubled, knock it back and divide the dough into six evenly sized lumps. Divide each of these lumps into three, roll them into thin sausages and plait/braid (depending on where you're from – in the UK we call it plait!) the sausages together. Place these on a baking tray, covered with a tea towel, and leave to prove again for around 40 minutes. Meanwhile pre-heat the oven to 200ºC.

When the little plaits/braids have almost doubled in size again, brush the tops with beaten egg and bake for around 20 minutes, by which time they should be a lovely golden brown and will sound hollow if you tap the undersides. Brush the tops with some more maple syrup while they're still warm.

You really need to eat these while they're fresh and preferably still warm as they do stale quickly, but a quick blast in the oven will freshen them up again the next day. Enjoy slathered with butter, obviously!

With a teeny tiny mug of espresso!

I do have some more posts planned for the near future, including showing off my Christmas cake, which I made a couple of days ago and have already fed with a generous amount of brandy, and some recipes for chutney which is my new obsession. Oh and I also want to show you my latest kitchen toy, which happens to be yet another way for me to get my caffeine fix...

101 uses for a breadmaker - Chelsea buns

I've been in my new job for a week now, and I really like it, but it doesn't leave me much time for baking bread. - at least so I'm not taking it out of the oven at 11pm. So I have dug out my old neglected breadmaker and discovered that it has a timer. This means that I can throw ingredients into the pan in the morning before I leave, set the timer, and have the dough mixed and proved ready to take out, knock back, play around with and bake in a proper oven.



The first thing I did, just to try it out and see if the timer worked, was a malted grain loaf that turned out very well and we had the remains of it today for a much-needed sausage sandwich (to ease our alcohol-induced headaches). I'll post that recipe in a day or two; it's very simple and makes use of lovely malted grain flour. But today I'm sharing a slightly more interesting recipe: one for Chelsea buns. If you've never heard of them, and if you're not from the UK you probably haven't, this is what the blurb on Wikipedia says: The Chelsea bun is a type of currant bun that was first created in the 18th century at the Bun House in Chelsea, an establishment favoured by Hanoverian royalty and demolished in 1839.

Anyway here's the recipe I tried, and a very nice recipe it is too.

For the dough:
225ml milk
1 egg
500g strong white flour
1 tsp salt
75g caster sugar
50g softened butter
1 tsp easy blend dried yeast (the sort that comes in a sachet and probably says "suitable for breadmakers" on the packaging)

Put the milk and egg into the bread machine pan. Add the flour, then the salt, sugar and butter (keep the last three ingredients separate, in different corners). Make a well in the flour and pour in the yeast. Set the machine on the dough setting and press start. (Of course, there's absolutely no reason you couldn't do make the dough by hand if you prefer, and leave it to prove in a covered bowl till doubled in size.)

Meanwhile make the filling:

25g melted butter
115g sultanas
25g mixed peel
25g currants or raisins
25g soft brown sugar
1 good tsp mixed spice

Mix all of the above together. Lightly grease a square or rectangular tin, I used a small roasting tin around 7" x 12".

When the dough is ready, knock it back and use a rolling pin to roll it out on a floured surface to about 30cm/12 inch square. Sprinkle the filling evenly all over the dough and roll it up like a Swiss roll (do you have those outside of the UK??). Cut into 12 slices and place them in the tin, cut side up. Cover and leave to rise again for 30-45 minutes. They should look nice and puffy. Preheat the oven to 200ºC.

Bake the buns. Now the book (see link below) says 15-20 minutes. In my oven, which is new and pretty accurate, it took about half an hour, so you'll want to keep an eye on them. The most accurate way to check if your dough is cooked in the middle is with a temperature probe/meat thermometer if you have one, and you're looking for 94ºC. Anything around 90º should be fine. If you don't have one, they should be evenly browned and should just look cooked! If they're starting to brown at the edges too much before the middle is done, cover it in some foil, this will allow it to continue cooking without it getting too dark.




When they're done, take them out, let them sit in the tin for a few minutes before turning them out, and get on with making the glaze:

50g caster sugar
50ml water
5ml orange flower water (optional; rosewater would be nice too, if you like it)

Melt the above together in a small saucepan till the sugar has dissolved, then boil for a couple of minutes until it's turned syrupy. Brush all over the tops of the buns.



Try and wait until they've cooled down enough that they won't burn your mouth before ripping them apart and tucking in. I lasted about ten minutes. So far I've eaten four! They're fantastic with coffee. And it goes to show that a breadmaker is good for a lot more than just making a white loaf with a big hole in the bottom :)

Apologies for the poor photos, it was very dark and I was on my way out so snapped them very quickly.

Recipe taken from The Ultimate Bread Machine Cookbook by Jennie Shapter - a jumble sale bargain at 50p!

Brilliant buns make the best burgers

A few weeks ago, in Dublin Airport, I had a cheeseburger from Burger King. The burger itself wasn't that bad, but the bum was horrible. A bendy, floppy, tasteless brown piece of cotton wool. I honestly wouldn't have a clue how to make a burger bun that was that floppy.

I do, however, know how to make lovely sesame buns that are a lot more tasty and filing and, importantly, don't bend when you pick them up! These are very easy, and they freeze very well so you can always have a few ready for when you just fancy a burger (or something else tasty in a bap).

Ingredients:

450g strong flour
300ml warm water (not too hot)
5g dried yeast (or 1 tsp)
pinch of sugar
9g salt (if your scale doesn't weigh increments as small as this, just use 2 level tsp)
1 tbsp sesame oil
sesame seeds

Firstly, dissolve the dried yeast and the sugar in the warm water. Let it sit for ten minutes till it starts to foam. (If you're using easy blend dried yeast you don't need to do this step, you can just throw it all in together.)

Mix the flour and salt. Make a well and pour in the yeast and water mixture and the sesame oil. Mix it all together with your hand until you get a shaggy ball of dough, and knead it on a lightly floured surface for about ten minutes until it's lovely and smooth and stretchy. If it's very wet, add a bit more flour, but try not to add too much because the higher the water content of your dough, the nicer the texture of the bread will be. Alternatively, throw it all in a food mixer with a dough hook and knead for about five minutes on a low speed. You could also use a breadmaker on a dough setting.


Make the dough into a nice tight ball and sit it in a bowl that you've sprayed or lightly rubbed with oil. Cover it with a bit of oiled cling film and put it somewhere warm for an hour or so, or till it's doubled in size.

When it's looking ready, take it out of its bowl, knock it back and give it a light knead. Cut it into six equal(ish) portions, roll them into balls and place them on a floured or oiled baking tray, quite close together. Brush the tops with a little water and sprinkle them with sesame seeds. Cover with a clean tea towel and leave for about forty minutes or until they're starting to join up. Meanwhile preheat the oven to 190ºC and place a roasting tin or similar on the bottom of the oven.

Ready for their final rising

Put the buns on a high shelf, and pour some water into the roasting tin - this helps to create a lovely crust. Bake for about 25 minutes, or until they sound hollow when tapped on the bottom and are nicely browned on top. Cool on a wire rack.

Tomorrow I'll show you what we ate in these buns for our dinner tonight!

By the way, here's my "breadmaker", also known as a Kenwood Chef.


I usually can't be bothered to knead dough by hand so this is in constant use in our house, not just for bread but for cakes, pastry, pasta dough and all sorts of stuff. It's about seven years old and still good as new - I expect it'll probably outlive me. We do have a breadmaker but it very rarely gets used, because I prefer to be able to get a feel for the dough.

Ciabatta, and a celebration of my new toy

There are very few kitchen gadgets and appliances that I don't own, but one thing missing from my life was a panini press.

So on Thursday I bought a panini press. I'm so glad that I did. Look how shiny it is.



And while Sainsbury's ciabatta rolls are perfectly nice, I was sure I could do better. So I dug out my copy of Ursula Ferrigno's The New Family Bread Book which I was lucky enough to win last year on Let Her Bake Cake, found a recipe, and set to work.

Ciabatta is a long drawn out process, which you need to start the night before you actually want some bread, and it's best if you do it on a day when you're mostly at home as there are a few stages of knocking back and proving.

Here's the recipe (slightly adapted):

Make the biga the night before: Dissolve 1tsp dried yeast in 150ml warm water. Add to 250g strong plain flour and mix it to a loose, sticky dough. Knead for a few minutes, cover and leave overnight.

Next day, dissolve another 1tsp dried yeast into 300ml warm water. Add this to the biga and mix together. Add 250g strong flour and beat with a wooden spoon, your hand or the dough hook of an electric mixer for a few minutes. Cover and leave somewhere warm to double in size. (This took about 2 hours.)

Next add 2 tsp Maldon or other sea salt, or 1 1/2 tsp 'normal' salt, and 4tsp olive oil (extra virgin is nice, but normal is fine) to the dough, and add another 250g strong flour. Knead with your hands or a machine till the dough is smooth - it will be very sticky but this is normal. Cover and leave to double in size again. Turn on the oven to 200ºC.

Now throw lots of flour onto your work surface, knock the dough back and shape it into twelve little turd-like shapes (sorry, but look at the photo below to see what I mean!).


Sprinkle a bit of semolina onto two baking trays, divide the rolls between the baking trays, sprinkle the tops with lots more semolina (it gives the finished rolls a lovely texture), cover with clean tea towels and leave to prove for another half an hour or so.

Bake for 15-20 minutes till they are golden and crisp, and cool on a wire rack.


Now I know this all sounds like a bit of a faff, but believe me it is worth it - these little rolls are much nicer than anything you can buy in the shops.

So what I did was split two in half (they're small, and I was hungry, alright?), spread pesto on one half, sprinkled on some grated mozzarella, toasted them in the panini press and scoffed them with a bit of rocket salad. Yummy.


Incidentally, if you like baking bread, get yourself a dough scraper like the one below. If my house was on fire, this would be one of the things I'd grab (along with the Kenwood Chef and the pressure cooker). It's one of the most useful things in any baker's kitchen.