APPLE AND FENNEL SEED SODA BREAD

Rustic, crumbly soda bread

1 small loaf

100g stoneground rye flour

50g strong white bread flour, plus extra to dust

100g wholemeal flour

2 tbsp ground linseed/flaxseed

1 tbsp toasted chopped hazelnuts

1 tsp sesame seeds

1 tbsp fennel seeds

1 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 tsp flaked sea salt

1/2 grated apple

200ml whole milk

1.  Heat the oven to 210C/fan190C/gas 7. Lightly flour a baking sheet.

2. Mix all the dry ingredients in a large bowl then add the milk and stir to form a wet dough. Scrape the dough into a ball and lift onto the baking sheet. Dust the dough with a little flour and slice a cross in the top with a very sharp knife. 

3. Bake the loaf for 1 hour until crusty and baked through. Stick a skewer in it; if the centre is very sticky, put it back in for a little longer. Allow the loaf to cool before slicing or tearing, and spreading on lots of butter.

BROAD BEAN BRUSCHETTA

BROAD BEAN BRUSCHETTA

Spring on toast

serves 1-2

ingredients

250g broad beans, fresh best but frozen good too

1 garlic clove, roughly chopped

juice of 1/2 lemon

handful mint leaves, plus more to serve

3 tbsp olive oil, plus more to serve

2 tsp sugar, plus more to serve

1 tsp salt, plus more to serve

2 large slices of good bread

Bring a pan of water to the boil and add the broad beans. Bring to the boil again and simmer for 4 or so minutes. Drain and refresh under cool water and, if you have time, shell some or most of the beans. They are much easier to shell when cooked.

Add the beans to a small food processor and add the rest of the ingredients. Pulse about 20 times until you have a rough paste. If some beans have been missed out and are whole, leave them. They look lovely mixed through.

Taste the mixture. Add more salt to season, sugar to sweeten or lemon juice to sharpen up.

Toast the bread and spread over the broad beans. Scatter with mint leaves, a scrunch of black pepper, a pinch of sea salt flakes, and a generous drizzle of olive oil.

Serve for a light lunch with pea soup, chop up and serve as a canape or have for an unusual breakfast like I just have.

MARMALADE HOT CROSS BUNS

Hot cross buns are a joy to make. They dress you in a pinny, cover you in flour, and make you instantly loved by everybody. Bring out a towering plate of warm sticky buns on Easter morning and you're anyone's.

Cut in half, spread through a little (or a lot of) salted butter and melt into marmalade goodness.

MARMALADE HOT CROSS BUNS

makes about 16

ingredients

700g strong white bread flour

1 tsp salt

1 tsp mixed spice or a combination of ginger, nutmeg and cinnamon.

100g sugar

zest of 1 large orange

7g easy bake/fast-action yeast

1 duck egg (or 1 large hen egg), beaten

300ml milk, warm

1 tbsp flour

1 tbsp water

2 tbsps thin cut marmalade for glazing

Sieve the flour, salt, and spices into a large bowl. Make a well for the sugar, and add the zest and yeast. Pour in the egg and the tepid milk and mix, leaving to sit for a few minutes to activate the yeast.

Now, using your hands or a wooden spoon, fold the flour into the wet well, mixing to make a soft dough. If too wet and sticky add a little flour; if too dry add tepid milk a little at a time. Knead for roughly 5 minutes, pulling the dough away from you and pushing it with your palms and knuckles.

Oil and lightly flour the bowl. Sit the dough in the bowl, cover with a tea towel and place in a warm spot for an hour to prove.

Set the oven to the hottest it will go (roughly 240C).

Knock the air out of the dough on a floured surface, knead briefly, and set aside again to prove for 30 minutes or so.

Then, divide the dough into equal amounts (a small handful) and shape into balls. Lay into lines in a large roasting tin, leaving a three-finger sized gap between each bit of dough. Rest for 20 minutes, covered.

Mix 1 tbsp flour with 1 tbsp water. It should stretch nicely over the buns to form a cross. Do this after the dough has rested and place in the oven for 10 to 12 minutes until brown.

Remove onto a wire rack and glaze with the marmalade whilst still warm. Cut in half, toast again and smother with good butter. You may weep.

Get BAKING.

EXHIBITIONS AND BREAD AND BUTTER PUDDING

The boys at the 10 cases are very generously letting me put up a few paintings next Monday (6th Feb).

It'll be a casual affair so please pop your head in, buy a glass of their very good wine and take a glance at some of my scribbles downstairs.

All work will be for sale - it'll be a silent auction, so if you like a particular painting, put your name, number and price in the box and the highest bidder will have something to put on their wall.

Hope you can make it.

Meanwhile, here's my recipe for Bread and Butter Pudding. Two puds in a month, I know, but you can't cut out everything in January.

BREAD AND BUTTER PUDDING

Serves a greedy 4

1 loaf sliced brioche, with approx. 12 slices

150g butter

100g sultanas

2 eggs

2 egg yolks

200ml whole milk

150ml double cream

50g caster sugar

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground cloves

dash of golden rum (optional)

extra sugar for sprinkling on top

Set the oven to 180 degrees C.

Lightly grease up a deep dish, large enough to tower the brioche slices. Butter the bread on both sides and lay, side by side, in the bottom of the dish. Sprinkle with sultanas. Repeat this until you reach the top of the dish.

In a large measuring jug, whisk the eggs and egg yolks. Mix in the milk and cream. Then add the sugar, spices and rum, if using. When mixed through, gently pour over the bread.

Set the dish aside for at least 45 minutes so that the bread soaks up the cream mix. Sprinkle with any remaining raisins and sugar. Place in the oven and bake for 30 minutes until the top bread layer is golden and crisp.

Best served with a wobble and a generous drizzle of single cream. Pretty good cold too.

MARI LOU'S BUNS

Mari Lou and I made a pact. If I turn up early an hour early for work, keen to cook, she'd teach me how to make steamed buns for our lunch. Without hesitation, I greedily agreed and hauled myself out of bed the next morning, elbows greased, ready for a knead.

And Boy! was it worth it and Oh! what a lunch we had. Gorgeous little steamy parcels stuffed with sweetly spiced onions, soft roasted squash and salty feta, with Clara's beautiful green lentil salad on the side. Slicing into a dumpling with its gentle puff of air and sinking teeth slowly into the dough with its soft texture and springy bite was nothing other than Faint.

BUTTERNUT SQUASH, CARAMELISED ONION AND FETA STEAMED BUNS


makes 10-12 medium sized dumplings
ingredients

The dough:
750g self raising flour
300ml warm water
1 tsp sugar
1/2 cup milk
1 sachet Easy dry yeast
Pinch salt

The filling:
1 large butternut squash, peeled and chopped into 2cm x 2cm cubes

10 white onions
2 tbsp sweet chilli
2 tbsp oyster sauce
2 tbsp Kikkomam soy sauce

200g feta, crumbled

Mix the dry ingredients with the flour in a large bowl and make a well in the centre. Fold in the wet ingredients and delicately mix the ingredients with your fingers. When the dough is fully combined, turn it out onto a floured surface and knead until smooth, adding flour to prevent it sticking to the table and your hands.

Cover, and leave to rise for almost 2 hours in a warm, draught-free spot (on top of a cooling oven or in the airing cupboard) so the dough has doubled in size. Then, knock the air out, pulling the dough gently so the gluten becomes active. The dough should be soft and spring back when you press it. If not, knead a little more, and leave to rise, covered, for another hour.

Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F/Gas mark 6. Place the butternut squash in a roasting tin, drizzle with olive oil and roast for 25 minutes until soft. Set aside

Soften the onions in a pan with a large knob of butter. Add the sweet chilli, oyster sauce and soy and reduce down for about 10 minutes so the onions have caramelised. Set aside.

When the dough is ready, cut off equal sized pieces with a sharp knife. Roll out into circles on a floured surface with a rolling pin. Place approx. 2 tbsp of the squash, onions and feta into the centre, and fold the edges round it like a little handkerchief bundle. To seal the corners dab a little bit of water and twist together so there are no gaps. Leave the buns to rise for 30-45 minutes in a bamboo steamer, off the heat.

Heat a pan of enough water so that, when placing the steamer on top, the water does not touch it. Bring the water to the boil and steam the buns for 15 minutes. Remove from the heat and serve. They will be very hot inside so, after slicing, leave a few seconds to cool before sinking your teeth in. The dough should be white, soft and moist and the filling hot, salty and sweet.


Truly dumpling-scrumptious and always room for another. Thank you Mari Lou, you genius you.

PIEFECT

THIS SEASON'S CRUST-HAVE

Get your bloomin' lovely silicon pie birds from cook's haven Ceramica Blue to keep your pastry from sinking ship.

P.S DAY 7. Sourdough starter (Bruce) has been lovingly cared for - half of it discarded each day and fed with new fuel - and is now bubbling happily away. Almost ready for bread making frenzy. Brain a-fizz with first recipes...

THE INVISIBLE GOLDFISH

Bubbles have started appearing after 48 hours. As I opened the lid, one came to the surface and popped. A great gulp of air from nothing in particular. It smells beery and warm - just like yeast should.

Stage two.

♥ Whisk in 100g flour (of the same flour) and as near to 100g water as possible. You want to keep the thick consistency of the previous mix.

♥ Put the lid back on - put it back in the warm spot - and wait at least another day before scooping out half the batter and adding a fresh mix. This is no game for nail biters...

SOURDOUGH. DAY ONE.

Watching the light and bouncy sourdough be rolled out every morning at Books For Cooks wakes up the baker in me. In goes a spoonful of Eric's age-old starter, which has been nurtured everyday since the first mix was made almost thirty years ago. The starter is entirely unique, made only with the grape skins from the Savarine vineyard in the South West of France, organic flour and purified water, topped up with every use. The flavour is heady, strong and bitter and makes the most delicious focaccia.

But with every sourdough, whether fermented with grapes or not, comes an individuality. No batch is the same. The growth, pureness and flavour of the natural levain are dependent on the surrounding environment, feeding on yeast particles in the air.

In the months leading up to making my own sourdough starter, I've been offered samples to adopt...but with stories like the one above, I'd rather have my own to tell. It may not be clean French air here - in fact it's Shepherd's Bush - but it's damn exciting all the same.

Here's the start of my starter, and here's to a daily bread:

DAY ONE:

♥ Sterilize jar with boiling water for approx. 10 minutes. Pour water out. The container needs to be free from anything that will corrupt the natural yeast of the starter.

♥ Measure out equal parts of organic flour and warm distilled water - I used 25g Doves Organic wholegrain spelt flour and 75g Doves Organic strong wholemeal with 100g water.

♥ Beat water and flour together well to a porridge-like consistency. Hugh F-W likens it to 'thick paint'.

♥ Leave the mix in a warm (about 30°C), undraughty place, cover with clingfilm and leave to ferment.

♥ When bubbles appear - and it could be hours or days - it's feeding time...TBContinued.

Read food blogger and cookbook-writer Vanessa Kimbell's enchanting account of her love for sourdough.

I lived in the south of France every holiday since I was a very young girl. We always ate sourdough bread from the village bakery. As I got to about 12 years old, every morning I would get up and go to the bakery and help bake the bread. It was magic. The smell of the first batch would waft through the pigeon holes of my bedroom and I would charge down the alleyway in the dark to a floury warm bakery where I would eat hot croissant and drink sweet dark coffee. I worked in the bakery full time for a summer aged 17 and, a year later, went on to work in another bakery in the local town. As I got to about 19 years old I was busy at university and didn't go to France for several years...

Just 3 years ago I was back at the house in France. I woke to the smell of bread. It drew me like the pied piper's song to the bakery doors. It was irresistible and before I knew it I was in the bakery spreading butter over warm crusty sourdough and sinking my teeth in. Oh, familiar joy! The crunch of the crust and the yield of the soft bouncy inner. Exquisite. I didn't give a fig. There was me.. and the bread - and that was all there was to the world.

Join the sourdough community with recipes and tips on The Sourdough Companion.

APPLE SODA BREAD

If the bread in the basket is warm and grainy when I go to a restaurant I know I should order a light meal. With a knob of salty butter melting into the holes and dips, there's no holding back and frankly, how could anything that follows be better? I love soggy bread too. Bread and butter pudding, pappa al pomodoro, and another hunk of fresh bread to soak up the soup. And nothing beats cutting into a fresh loaf.

As much as I love bread though, it's easy to forget the effort involved. Hours spent mixing, kneading, waiting, and it's all disappeared before you know it. Which is why Soda bread is my favourite kind of bread; Still the same heavenly smells, still the tingly toes, still the desire to eat it all in one go...but in half the time. No need to knead, leaven, re-knead and re-leaven, just mix and put in the oven.

Cook it just before a dinner party and not only will your guests be fainting from the smell but they won't even notice your starter is shop bought and your main is burnt.

APPLE SODA BREAD

INGREDIENTS for one medium loaf

500g malt bread flour

2tbsp bicarbonate of soda

2 tsps grape nuts

1 tbsp oats

200ml milk

300g natural yoghurt

handful mixed seeds

1 small apple, sliced, skin on
1 tbsp demerera sugar

Preheat the oven to 250 degrees C or 500 degrees F. Prepare a medium sized loaf, rubbing the bottom and the sides with unsalted butter and a dusting of plain flour.

Mix the flour, the bicarbonate of soda, the oats and grape nuts evenly in a large mixing bowl. Make a well in the centre of the flour and pour in the yoghurt and milk. With a fork, mix in the wet with the dry. The mixture will be sticky and wet still but this is how you want it.

Take half the mix and spread it into the bottom of the tin.

Now, lay the sliced apples on top and sprinkle with the sugar. When cooked with the bread they will soften slightly but not lose their shape. Pour over the remaining dough and sprinkle with the seeds.

Bake for 1 hour and 10 minutes, checking it at half time by pushing a clean knife or skewer through the middle. At the end of the baking time, it may still be slightly wet but take it out and let it rest for 30-45 minutes before breaking loose and diving in.

This bread is fantastic with savoury dishes as well as a good jam - try a apple soda cheese on toast for a lovely fromage/pomme combination, or with salted butter and marmite.

Warning: It may bring a tear to your eye.

GEORGIE'S SNOBROD

Has Autumn officially struck do we think? Wake up and it's sunny; go home and you wish you'd brought your woolly jumper? Leaves get stuck to the bottom of your shoe, your leisurely stroll unexpectedly skids into an awkward run, that excruciating laugh 'It's fine! Ha ha ha...', an autumnal shade of burnt umber rising up to your roots? I'd say it has.

Which is why I've chosen to cook Georgie's recipe for her Snobrod: the perfect nibble for those days when we're just not sure which season we're in. This authentic Danish recipe is originally cooked over the fire in the great outdoors, but can just as easily be baked in the oven for a bit of warmth if the weather's turned all umbrella.

Just before I left for life int smoke, I cooked this for friends on the beach. Not only did it cuddle our cockles then, but it's warming mine now just thinking about that first stringy bite.

SNOBROD

SERVES 4
200g flour
100ml water
1tbsp sugar
pinch salt
secret ingredient of your choice
(I used up some of our last Isle of Wight green figs, roasted and wrapped round with the dough)

'This is a recipe I used to cook with my sister as a little girl in Denmark...it is called 'Snobrod'.

'All you need is 200g flour, 100ml water, 1 tbsp sugar and some salt. Knead all the ingredients together to make a dough, divide into 4 portions and roll each portion into thin sausages.


'Wind each sausage securely around a stick (any stick that is lying around, normally best to pull the knobbles off them first!), and cook by turning the stick over the open fire until the Snobrod is brown and crispy.

'It is very basic, but it is tres rustique...you can add any bit of magic to make it more exciting. Perhaps chop olives, raisins and cinnamon or parma ham into the mixture for extra flavour...'

A wonderful one. Thank you my dear Georgie.

I KNEAD BREAD

Today, my Sunday morning kicked off punctually at 8 o’clock, setting out of the house with baking buddy, Miss Mackenzie, on the hunt for yeast and bread flour, in preparation for a morn of energetic bread making. I wanted my house to smell like a bakery. I wanted to breathe in those heavenly fumes, waft the warmth into my nostrils and watch the perfectly formed dough rise in the oven...


My mum – Happy Mother’s Day to her – is, and always has been a queen for whipping up a freshly baked loaf, mixing flavours and always succeeding in getting a warm approval. And as I am away from the comfort of her kneading expertise, I felt the ‘knead’ (ahem) to brighten up my weekend with a loaf of the highest ‘a la mère’ quality.


Asking around for thoughts on flavours just put me right back to where I started. Any amount of fresh inspiration couldn’t erase the thought of one particular combination. I was advised to add Marmite to my bread. Or Parmesan cheese and sun-dried tomatoes, or blue cheese and rosemary. Even the sound of banana and apricot couldn't shake me. But stubborn as I am, the thought of walnut and honey baked in a warm loaf makes me want to collapse into a heap of joy. Its sweet crunch, humid from the oven, and spread with a little melted butter, tops them all. It has no place in the bread bin and MUST be eaten immediately; no time wasted, just instant pleasure.

So, we kneaded the dough. And let it rise. And baked it. And ate it. And what a perfect complement to a, not so lazy, Sunday morning.

WALNUT AND HONEY BREAD

INGREDIENTS

500g strong white/wholemeal bread flour (either works)
7g dried yeast
300ml warm water
25g butter
Extra flour for dusting
1tbsp honey (or molasses if you’ve got it –even better)
50g crushed walnuts

Preheat the oven to 230 degrees C/ 450 degrees F/ gas mark 8. Mix all the dry ingredients together, and then rub in the butter. Make a well in the flour mixture and pour in the warm water. Use your hands to combine the ingredients until you have a non-sticky ball. Knead the dough well on a floured table, for approximately ten minutes until it bounces back when pressed.
Place into a bowl and cover with a damp tea towel. Find your warmest place in the house, apart from inside the oven. Leave it to rest until the dough has risen to double its original size (usually 1 ½ hours), knock the air out again, and leave it to prove once more for about 30 minutes. Add the walnuts and honey, and shape into desired form. Place into a large, deep, floured bread tin, or a floured baking tray for about 8 rolls. Bake in the heated oven for 30-35 minutes, until the dough is cooked and the top, brown.

Now, slice, and serve with a knob of butter, your favourite jam and a mug of fresh coffee. Mmmmmm...