No bread is an island

...entire of itself. (With apologies to John Donne!)
I live and breathe breadmaking. I’m an evangelist who would like everyone to make his or her own bread. I want to demystify breadmaking and show it as the easy everyday craft that it is. To this end I endeavour to make my recipes as simple and as foolproof as I possibly can.

I call my blog 'No bread is an island' because every bread is connected to another bread. So a spicy fruit bun with a cross on top is a hot cross bun. This fruit dough will also make a fruit loaf - or Chelsea buns or a Swedish tea ring...
I'm also a vegan, so I have lots of vegan recipes on here - and I'm adding more all the time.

Saturday 6 March 2010

Cornbread with roasted peppers

Cornbread is one of the breads I don't make often enough!

I made this recently with some friends in a local care home - so I had to go easy with the chilli, otherwise I'd have included more.

I used a jar of roasted peppers from Aldi.

Ingredients:
125g strong white flour
75g polenta or maizemeal
1/2 veggie Oxo cube
1/4 tsp curry powder
1 dsp fresh yeast
125ml lukewarm water
Splash of the oil from the roasted peppers

Plus, 50g or so chopped red and yellow roasted peppers (folded into the dough)

Method:
Measure the water and stir in the yeast until it has dissolved. Place the flour, crumbled stock cube and chilli powder into a mixing bowl. Stir the dry ingredients to mix them and prevent any streaky bits in the bread, then pour in the yeast liquid and add the oil.

MIx into a soft dough and knead only until it is smooth.

To add the peppers, press the dough out flat and spread the peppers over. Roll up the dough and gently knead it a few times to mix the peppers through.

Shape it into a round and place on an oiled baking sheet or one lined with baking parchment and make some deep cuts in dough - to expose the peppers - in a pattern of your choosing.

(I made one with four cuts in a 'star' shape, but my students were not so hidebound - their 'rough cuts' made their bread look much more attractive than mine.)

Cover with a tea towel and leave to rise until it has appreciably grown in size - about half as big again.

Bake at 220C for about 15-20 minutes. It's done when it is brown across the bottom of the loaf.

Place on a cooling rack.

Variations:
The inclusion of some green chillis would make this bread even more colourful - as well as making it tastier.
Play about with the ratio of flour and maizemeal as you will. Even all maizemeal will work, although you'll only get a minimal rise.

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