Milk Loaf

  

You cannot leave me alone with a fresh loaf of bread. No way, no how. If you turn your back for one minute I'm smothering thickly cut slices with butter and jam or warming up the panini press (another one of my kitchen gadgets) for ham and cheese Hasty Tasties.  I'm all over that bread like cream cheese on a bagel. That's a joke, I say, that's a joke, son. (And that's the only Foghorn Leghorn reference I'm probably ever going to make on my blog - though I'm not promising anything.)



Milk Loaf
slightly adapted from Dan Lepard's The Handmade Loaf
Makes 1 loaf

1 1/2 teaspoons fresh yeast, crumbled
350g full-cream milk at 20 degrees C
20g maple syrup
250g plain white flour
250g semolina flour or strong white flour
1 1/4 teaspoon fine seal salt
25g warmed melted unsalted butter
1 tablespoon cream for glazing

Whisk the yeast with the milk and syrup in a large bowl. Add the flours and the salt and get your hands into the mix and squeeze it together until you have a soft, sticky dough. Pour the warm, melted butter and squeeze it into the dough. Cover the bowl with cling wrap and leave for 10 minutes.

Run a teaspoon on live oil into a work surface and knead the dough for 10 seconds, forming the dough into a smooth ball. Rub a clean bowl with a little oil and put the dough in, cover the bowl with cling wrap and leave for another 10 minutes. Repeat this kneading and resting twice more, at 10 minutes intervals, then leave the dough to rest for 30 minutes.

Grease and flour a deep 12 x 19 cm loaf tin. Divide the dough into two equal portions, roll them both into a ball and drop them side-by-side into the prepared tin, cover with a cloth and leave to rise for 1 1/2 hours or until almost doubled in size.

Preheat the oven to 220 degrees C. Brush the top of the loaf with a little cream and bake for 15 minutes, then lower the heat to 180 degrees C and bake for a further 25-30 minutes, or until the loaf has come away from the sides of the tin. Remove from the tin and cool on a wire rack.