Wednesday 10 April 2013

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.

14 comments:

  1. Looks super tasty! Good bread is something I miss when I'm in the UK, because in Germany we have such a wide variety... I'm definitely a bread girl, I have to have it with everything.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh!! You use fresh yeast!!! I cannot live without this yeast, I love iiitttt! Plus, I love your bread. Another recipe from you on my list :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Most perfect-looking bread ever! Come to Texas and hang out with me and let's bake bread allll dayyyy!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Keep it coming! I love the Foghorn Leghorn jokes and the bread and the kitchen gadgets! That one I have and I LOVE. Couldn't live without it. Beautiful loaf Jennifer!

    ReplyDelete
  5. What a stunning loaf of bread. Such talent! You know if one doesn't have an actually "Pannini" making gadget, a waffle iron could be a good substitute. Just saying.

    ReplyDelete
  6. This is the prettiest homemade bread loaf i've seen for a while. I bet it tastes as good as it looks.

    ReplyDelete
  7. You are a riot! Love this post because we share the love of bread! How could you resist this beauty? It looks incredible!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Thanks for your lovely comment Johanna. I couldn't live without good bread. Well, technically I could, but I wouldn't want to.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Thanks Gabrielle. Yay for fresh yeast. I love it too. When I buy it it turns me into a crazy bakerrrr... or something.

    ReplyDelete
  10. I would so love to hang out with you Little Kitchie. Imagine the trouble we could get into together.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Thanks so much Pink Patisserie. I love Foghorn Leghorn. He's my kinda rooster.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Thanks Patty, that's so sweet of you to say. Thanks for the tip about the waffle iron (which I also have). I'm definitely not letting my husband read this post!

    ReplyDelete
  13. Thanks so much Aya. The camera loves this bread almost as much as I do, there's no doubt about it.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Thanks Jessica. I think people who love bread are the best kind of people.

    ReplyDelete