PANE AL CIOCCOLATO (Italian chocolate bread)

Tuesday 16th September 2014

And here's the pic

Monday 15th September 2014

Making one of these for my coffee morning tomorrow.

Ingredients:

200g strong flour (1/3rd wholemeal)

15g cocoa powder (about a dessertspoon and a half)

2 dessertspoons sugar

50g dates - chopped into quarters

60g dark chocolate - chopped roughly

25g walnuts - chopped into quarters

25g flaked almonds

100g sultanas - soaked for 30 minutes in hot water - use the water for the yeast liquid, but make sure it has cooled sufficiently

100ml yeast liquid made with 20g fresh yeast and 80g of the soaking water

50g olive oil (I used Lidl's Extra Virgin, which is all we have - but any olive oil is fine)

A GREAT WALKING (AND BAKING) WEEKEND IN WALES

A plain, ordinary focaccia - nonetheless, a gorgeous bit of bread!

On Sunday I returned from a fantastic walking weekend in mid-Wales - with 35 other blokes, here. We do this every six months or so - basically eating, drinking and walking from Friday midday until Sunday lunchtime. 

On Saturday evening, after dinner, for a bit of light entertainment - and education - I generally do a breadmaking demo. On this occasion I'd brought along a jar of sun-dried tomatoes, so I thought we'd make a couple of focaccias - one plain, with just olive oil, and the other with s-d-tomatoes.

The recipe is simplicity itself - as with any bread you can make it as easy or as complicated as you wish. With the audience I had, who'd just had a very good meal - preceded by a goodly intake of beer, accompanied with wine and followed by a very good port - and were keen to get stuck into the card games that were always an integral part of these weekends, I went for the easy option!

I enlisted the help of one of the newcomers to the group, Charlie, who was keen to make his own bread - he made the loaf at the top of the post.

So the ingredients for each loaf were two mugs of bread flour, with a bit of salt, 2/3rds of a mug of lukewarm water and a good teaspoon of yeast, along with a glug of olive oil. 

Mixed altogether into a dough - takes about 2 minutes - kneaded for a further two minutes, pressed into a rough circle about 1.5cm thick and placed onto a prepared baking tray. 

With the plain one a few holes were simply pressed in the top of the dough with the  fingertips which were then filled with olive oil.

The second one was divided into 9 sections, a la noughts and crosses. A whole sun-dried tomato was place in each of these squares and pressed down a bit. (It would have been better to nick the surface of the dough first, to allow the tomatoes a better purchase, as several fell off the top of the loaf during baking!)

While the dough was proving, I began a game of chess - which resulted in the dough being horrifically over-proved. However, we (only just!) managed to get away with it!

Shaped and put to prove

Over proved and over baked, I'm afraid - the hazards of an unfamiliar oven

The s-d-tomato focaccia was not only over-proved, it was over-baked and the tomatoes were singed on top - but it didn't seem to make any difference to the flavour of the loaf, which was excellent!

Just goes to show the forgiving nature of breadmaking - you can get away with most things!

SODA BREAD FOCACCIA, WITH MALTHOUSE FLOUR (undercover)

I'll try and remember to take a photo of the crumb when we cut into it - tomorrow, at my daughter's

Going to see my daughter and her husband tomorrow, so I thought I'd make some bread to take up with me.

Her husband is a great fan of soda bread - and both he and my daughter also like Malthouse flour (Malthouse is Doves version of Granary flour), so I thought I would combine the two.

I've been putting more and more olive oil in my soda breads recently - it does improve the crust especially, IMO. And the focaccia treatment of pouring olive oil into holes on top of the loaf does make a difference.

Finally, I used the undercover method with this loaf.

Ingredients:
400g Malthouse flour
4 tsps (25g approx) baking powder
5g salt
250g water
50g Extra virgin olive oil

Method:

1.     Since the baking powder begins working as soon as it comes into contact with the water, it is essential to have everything ready before mixing the dough. So, heat the oven to 220C, 425F, gas mark 7 and either grease your baking sheet or line it with baking parchment.

2.     Place the flour and salt into a large mixing bowl, add the baking  powder and stir the dry ingredients to mix them evenly. When the oven is hot, add the water, then the olive oil and begin mixing with a palette knife or similar.

3.     Turn it out onto a lightly floured worktop, knead it firmly several times, then mould it into a cob shape, roll it out into a large circle, about 2cm thick and place it on your prepared baking sheet. 
(With practice you can get the mixing and shaping done in less than two minutes.)

4.    Press your fingertips into the dough, making large indentations, and drizzle oil all over the dough and into the holes. 

5.     Bake in the centre of the oven for 25-30 minutes, turning at intervals if necessary.

6.     The loaf is ready when it has a good colour underneath and a skewer comes out clean. You may need to put it back in, upside down, for a few more minutes. Place to cool on a wire rack.

Undercover method:

At step 5 I covered the dough with a stainless steel roasting dish for the first 10 minutes of baking. This allows the dough to rise that little bit more.