Brioche

I'm a busy person. There is nothing I love more than a weekend jam packed full of activity. But every now and then I like to slow down. I like to leave days free to see what happens. Let destiny have a look in. I had one of those free days. It was a lovely lazy Sunday with not a care in the world and not a job to do. I was just pottering around the house and enjoying doing not very much.

Of course that didn't last very long and before I knew it I was scouring my favorite blogs looking for a recipe for Brioche. Why? Just cos that's what having too much time on your hands leads to. Bea at La Tartine Gourmande had a great recipe that was simple but did take a lot of time. Perfect for my situation. I had nothing but time on my hands. Well I did before I started making the bread ...
You see, there is a lot of time spent letting the dough rise ....









... and then letting it rise again. With all of that time on my hands I found myself thinking of other things I wanted to do. I took the dog for a walk which actually turned into a long coffee break at the cafe in the doggie park followed by a leisurely stroll along the water front. All of these lovely activities made me forget about making my bread. When I got home from my walk I realized we had to be at a friends house for dinner in 30 minutes and so I wouldn't be able to make the bread.

I've never made brioche before so I thought maybe I could mix up the dough again and maybe it would rise. Well here's some information I learned the hard way. Two rises is all you're getting out of this dough. All the willing in the world would not make the dough rise again. But I was not going to let this bread get the better of me. So the following day I made it again and on this attempt I made sure I left enough of that precious little thing called time.

Banana man

J loves his banana bread. He's not really a sweet tooth person. Not really into his dessert unless it contains alcohol. When he is feeling like a little something sweet in the afternoon he usually heads out to the local bakery and gets himself a big slice of banana bread. A number of times I have told him that I would gladly make him some banana bread but he has refused my offer. I think he likes the chance to get a break from work.

But of course I took this as a challange to see if I could win him over to my banana bread. One of the cafe's around the corner from us the Digi Cafe recently published the recipe for their banana bread in Delicious magazine. This was my second attempt as the last recipe I tried was a little too greasy. This one was a winner. J finished the whole loaf over the weekend (with a little help from me). I even got the ultimate compliment from Banana man when I was potterering around in the garden he called out from the kitchen "This banana bread tastes better than the one I buy". Mission accomplished.

Banana Bread

125g unsalted butter
1 firmly packed cup of brown sugar
2 eggs, plus 1 egg yolk for mascarpone
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 large, ripe banana, mashed
½ tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp shredded coconut
1 ½ cup (225g) plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tbs milk
250g mascarpone
2 tbsp icing sugar
¼ cup honey, plus extra to drizzle
Zest and juice of I lemon

• Preheat oven to 170ºC. Grease and line a 1L loaf pan with baking paper.


• Use and electric beater to beat butter and sugar until thick and pale. Add eggs, cinnamon, banana, vanilla and coconut. Beat on low speed until combined.


• Sift flour, baking powder and soda over and fold in gently, then fold in the milk.


• Pour into pan and bake for 40-45 mins until skewer inserted in centre comes out clean.


• Just before serving whisk egg yolk through mascarpone. Fold in icing sugar, honey, zest and juice.


• Serve the bread lightly toasted with butter, mascarpone and honey.

Note: I didn't have any mascarpone so I served it with ricotta. I think I would prefer the mascarpone if it is available

Bubble Bread

We're off to visit our friends in Camden for the weekend. You can tell we're real city slickers when going an hour out of Sydney counts as a holiday. They moved there last year and have a little farm so it'll be another world for me. There was talk of cutting goats toenails but I'm sure they were only joking (she says hopefully).

They have four dogs so we’re taking our dog, Teddy, on his first holiday. I hope he behaves himself. He's only 4 months old and thinks that all dogs want to play with him. He also has an amazing ability to sniff out a muddy puddle so we'll have to be careful if it rains over the weekend.

As a gift for our hosts I whipped together some spiced bubble bread from the bread book. I love this book. I borrowed a bread maker from a friend to see if I should buy one myself but to be honest I don’t mind making bread by hand. I think I’ll give back the bread maker and stick with the old fashioned method. I love the smell of bread cooking especially when it’s spiced with cinnamon.

I’ll report back how this one tasted. It took all my willpower not to break off one of those little bubbles and have a taste.


Spiced bubble bread

500g strong white flour
2 tblsp butter
4 tblsp milk powder
1 tsp salt
75g caster sugar
1 ¼ tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp grated nutmeg


1. Put the flour in a large bowl, add the butter and rub in with fingertips until the mixture resembles fine bread crumbs. Stir in the milk powder, salt, 1 tsp sugar and the yeast. Gradually mix in enough warm water to make the dough soft dough.
2. Knead well on a lightly floured surface for 5 mins until the dough is smooth and elastic. Put back into the bowl, cover loosely with oiled cling film and leave in a warm place for 1 hour or until doubled in size.
3. Tip the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead well. Cut into 30 pieces and shape each piece into a small ball
4. Mix the remaining sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg together in a shallow bowl. Roll the dough balls, one at a time, in the sugar mixture then arrange 14 in a greased 20cm springform tin. Arrange a second layer, with the balls balanced over the spaces between the lower ones, rather like bricks in a wall.
5. Cover loosely with oiled cling film and leave in a warm place for 30 mins or until the dough just reaches the top of the tin.
6. Remove the cling film and bake in a preheated oven 200C for 35 mins. Check after 15 mins and cover with foil if over browning.
7. Holding the tin with oven gloves, loosen the bread with a palette knife and transfer to a wire rack to cool. Sprinkle with the remaining spiced sugar and leave to cool.

Totally Addicted to Bread

For some the addiction is chocolate, for others its ice cream, for me its bread (and cheese but we’ll concentrate on the bread for the moment). There is nothing I like more than the smell of freshly baked bread except maybe the taste of freshly baked bread.

I gave in to my addiction and bought the bread book . I swear I was drooling just reading the book. This book has a plethora of lovely breads and also recipes for pretzels, bagels and doughnuts. I can’t wait to try these. Each recipe is given for hand made bread and also for a bread making machine. There always seems to be fewer steps involved in the bread making machine version. I am very tempted to buy a bread maker but EVERYONE keeps telling me that once the novelty wears off after the fist couple of uses the bread making machine will be relegated to the back of the kitchen appliances cupboard where it will build up dust before being sold at the next garage sale. So I have a cunning plan. My friend, A, bought himself a bread maker last year. I had the pleasure of tasting a few of his sourdough loaves but now the bread maker has been moved into kitchen appliance purgatory. I’m going to save it from this purgatory, dust it off and give it a run for its money. If all goes well with this little bread making venture then I will invest in my very own bread maker.

In the mean time I tried out some of the tomato, pesto and pine nut bread made the good old fashioned way – by hand. There is something very therapeutic about kneading dough. I made two loaves in the naïve belief that I would freeze one for later consumption. Who was I kidding? My friend M popped over with her gorgeous lil girl L, S, J & I all devoured almost all of the two loaves in less than an hour. It was delicious, especially since it was straight from the oven so the butter just melted in.

The best tomato bread I have ever tasted was made by a girl who works with me. I didn’t know she made it herself and asked her where she bought it because I really wanted to get some myself. The ultimate compliment I guess. I have tried her recipe but it just didn’t taste as good as the one she made. Damn that fickle yeast.

Tomato, Pesto & Pine Nut Bread

475 g (15 oz, 4 1/3 cups) strong white flour
1 ½ teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons caster sugar
1 ¼ teaspoons fast-action dried yeast
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons pesto
275 ml (9 fl oz, heaping 1 cup) water
75 g (3 oz, scant ½ cup) sun-dried tomatoes (not in oil), thinly sliced
3 tablespoons pine nuts
1 egg yolk, to glaze

1 Mix the flour, salt, sugar and yeast in a large bowl. Add the oil and pesto then gradually mix in enough warm water to make a soft dough.

2 Knead well on a lightly floured surface for 5 minutes until the dough is smooth and elastic. Work in the sun-dried tomatoes and all but 1 tablespoon of the pine nuts. Put the dough back into the bowl, cover loosely with oiled Clingfilm and leave in a warm place to rise for 1 hour or until doubled in size.

3 Tip the dough out on to a lightly floured surface, knead well then press into a greased 18 cm (7 inch) deep square tin or 1 kg (2 Ib) loaf tin.

4 Leave in a warm place to rise for 30 minutes or until the dough reaches the top of the tin.

5. Remove the Clingfilm, brush with the egg yolk mixed with 1 tablespoon of water and sprinkle with the remaining pine nuts. Bake in a preheated oven, 200C (400F), Gas Mark 6, for 30-35 minutes until the bread is well risen and sounds hollow when tapped with the fingertips. Check after 15 minutes and cover with foil if over-browning.

6 Holding the tin with oven gloves loosen the bread with a palette knife. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Fragrant rosemary bread

The smell alone while I was baking these traditional Tuscan bread rolls is reason enough to make them. If you could bottle that smell and sell it you’d be rich. These rosemary, sultana and olive oil bread rolls are called Pandiramerino. The recipe requires a considerable amount of olive oil so I was able to make use of a recently purchased bottle of the finest Dandaragan Estate Extra Virgin olive oil.

For weeks I have been craving a weekend where I had no commitments or chores to do. I just wanted to sit around and do as little as possible. But who was I kidding? I can’t sit around for more than five minutes without hopping up to do something. I didn’t even want to go out to the supermarket, so the challenge was to make something with the ingredients I already had at home.

I remembered reading a recipe in this months Delicious magazine for bread rolls that only required six ingredients, all of which I had in my cupboards. The time spent kneading the dough was much better fun than sitting around doing nothing, especially when you add the oil and it becomes all googy and squelchy. What a pleasure. The smell while they were baking was divine and I’m surprised that none of our neighbours came a-calling. They smelt so good that J and I devoured two as soon as they were out of the oven. Hence the recipe is for 6 rolls but I only had four to photograph.

Pandiramerino (rosemary, sultana and olive oil bread)
Makes 6

1 tbsp dried yeast
¼ cup (55g) caster sugar
400g plain flour, warmed
2 large sprigs rosemary
½ cup (125ml) extra virgin olive oil
150g sultanas, raisins or dried muscatel grapes

Dissolve the yeast and 1 teaspoon of the sugar in 1 cup (250ml) warm water and leave to stand for 10 mins until frothy.
Sift the flour into a bowl, add the remaining sugar, then make a well in the centre and add the yeast mixture. Mix until it comes together, then knead on a lightly floured work surface for 10 mins or until elastic. Put the dough in a clean oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap and leave to rise in a warm place for about 1 ½ hours.
Meanwhile, wash and dry the rosemary and strip off the leaves. Lightly bruise with the end of a rolling pin. Heat 1/3 cup (80ml) olive oil and the bruised rosemary leaves in a small saucepan. Remove from the heat and allow to cool. Strain when cold and remove the rosemary.
Uncover the dough and knock it back into shape. Tip out onto a lightly floured surface and knead cooled olive oil and reserved rosemary into dough with the sultanas.
Divide dough into 6 pieces, shape each into a neat ball, then put on a floured baking sheet and flatten slightly. Using a very sharp knife, make two long vertical cuts in the top of each roll, followed by to horizontal ones, like a grid. Cover and leave for 30-40mins or until doubled in size.
Preheat oven to 180C. Uncover the dough and brush lightly with the remaining oil. Bake for 30 mins or until risen and brown, and it sounds hollow when tapped on the bottom.

Irish Soda Bread

In honour of Mum’s arrival we made some Traditional Irish Soda Bread. My sister e-mailed the recipe to me recently and I wasn’t sure if I could get all the ingredients here, so I’ve had it lying around for a while.

Down the road from where my parents live in Dublin is a fantastic restaurant called Rolys Bistro. We’ve been going there since 1992 for family meals and one of the lovely parts about the meal was always the beautiful breads they serve while you peruse the menu. In fact their breads are so popular that they now sell them over the counter. In 2002 Colin O’Daly and Paul Cartwright, the chefs at Rolys, released a cookbook which my Mum and sister both have. This recipe for brown soda bread comes from that cook book.

It turned out so well which was a relief since the recipe actually makes 2 loafs. This is definitely one of the foods I miss the most from home. One of my ideal breakfasts is Irish brown bread with butter and marmalade and a big mug of tea. The mug of tea seems to be a recurring theme here at berrysimple.

Roly’s Soda Bread

850ml buttermilk
375g strong baker’s flour
250g coarse wholemeal
80g pinhead oatmeal
80g oat flakes
80g wheat germ
20g brown sugar
10g salt
30g bread soda (bicarb soda)
10g melted butter
1 egg
1 teaspoon caraway seeds (I substituted with sunflower seeds)
2 teaspoons treacle

Preheat Oven 200C
Sieve bread soda and white flour then mix in all dry ingredients. Mix with hands.
Add egg and treacle mix with hands then add buttermilk.
Mixture will be very wet leave for 5 mins for bread soda to work.
pour into two buttered loaf tins and heat in centre of oven for 60-90 mins.

After a few tries of this recipe I found that it works best in my oven when I covered it loosely with tinfoil after 40 mins to avoid top burning.
I wrap mine in tea towel and place on wire tray to cool - my Nana’s trick to avoid a hard crust.

Mum's the word

Aren't mums great? Well mine is anyway and I'm very excited because she is coming over for a holiday in a couple of weeks. No doubt there will be plenty to write about when my partner in food crime arrives over.

But enough about my Mum. This post is to say thank you to J's Mum who very kindly wrote out a recipe for zucchini bread and posted it over to me. I've had it for a few weeks now and recently we were talking about it on the phone. I have been off work for the last few days with a cold so I decided to amuse myself in the kitchen. I read the recipe again and it all seemed very straight forward - even for a sick girl with runny eyes and nose.

I had no picture to work with here and so I imagined that the bread would turn out green. But no. It was a lovely orange colour with lots of walnuts and dried fruits. I think the zucchini is more for texture. The cinnamon and cloves were the most prominent flavours. But maybe that was just because I have a cold. I will have to try it again when my tastebuds come back to life. This bread (cake) is really delicious and went really well with the many cups of tea I had. In fact, I had so many cups of tea that I nearly polished off the whole loaf. Lucky for me, J eventually came home from work to help me out.

So this bread gets a big thumbs up from me - easy to make and tastes fantastic. I'll definitely be making this one again.

Zucchini Bread (or courgette if you're in Europe)

1/2 oz (15g) unsalted butter
3 eggs
1 1/2 (12oz) granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups grated unpeeled raw zucchini
2 cups all purpose (plain) flour
2 tsps baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp cloves (which I ground up)
1 cup chopped walnuts
3/4 cup raisins (or other dried fruit)

1. Preheat oven to 180C
2. Butter a 9"x5" loaf tin
3. Beat eggs, sugar and vanilla until light and thick
4. Fold in grated zucchini
5. Sift dry ingredients together. Then stir into zucchini mixture until just blended
6. Fold in walnuts and raisins
7. Pour into loaf tin
8. Bake on middle rack for 1 hour 15 mins - or until skewer comes out clean
9. Cool slightly, remove from tin and cool on a rack.