Sour cream loaf

I've been on a baking binge over the last 2 weeks - only on the weekends, though, because weekdays are just not long enough for baking bread if you're not demonically organised, which I am not.

Ever since I discovered Dan Lepard's recipes in The Guardian, I've gone through some 300-odd recipes in his column published over the past so many years, and scouted out all the bread recipes that seemed interesting and easy. And printed them. And now I'm trying to bake them all, one by one.

The saffron bloomer got made twice. Then this one, which is really good. There's also a wheat & rye cider loaf, and a loaf made with fresh yeast... but I'm getting ahead of myself. Those recipes will follow in due course.

For this loaf, it was serendipitous that I had half a carton of sour cream in the fridge. It may have been just a teensy bit past its use-by date, but I didn't say that and you didn't read it. Besides, we're both alive, so there was no harm done.



I've never been so pleased with bread I've baked - this loaf could have come from a proper bakery, I kid you not. I SO like Dan Lepard, because he says there's no need to knead like a maniac to get good bread, and believe me, that man speaks true. I'm all for an easier life, and he does make it easier. I may have said that before, but it remains true nevertheless.



Recipe for: Sour cream loaf

Ingredients:

125g (4 oz or 1/2 cup) cold sour cream
1.5 tsp salt
2 tsp caster sugar
1 sachet (7g) fast action yeast
550g (1 lb 4 oz) strong white bread flour, plus more for shaping
Oil, for kneading

Method:

1. In a large bowl, mix the sour cream with 150ml cold water and 100ml boiling water.

2. Add the sugar and yeast and whisk it together, then mix in the flour and salt until it forms a rough ball. It will be quite sticky. Cover the bowl and leave the dough to sit for 10 minutes.

3. Lightly oil your working area (worktop or kneading board) and gently knead the dough on it for 10 seconds. Put the dough back in the bowl and let it rest covered for 10 minutes.

4. Repeat the 10-second-kneading/10-minute-resting procedure twice more, oiling the worktop again if required to stop the dough from sticking too much. After that, leave the dough covered in its bowl for an hour or so, until it has doubled in size.

5. Butter the base and sides of a large, deep, 8" (19cm) loaf tin. Line the base with non-stick baking paper.

6. Lightly flour the kneading board now and place the punched-down dough on it. Pat or roll it out into 1 2-cm thick rectangle that's the length of the loaf tin, then roll the dough up towards you as well as you can. Place it seam-side down in the loaf tin, flour the top lightly, cover with a towel and let it rise for 60-90 minutes until it is doubled again.

7. Bake at 200C (180C/350C for fan-assisted or convection ovens) for about 45 minutes till it is golden brown on top and sounds hollow when you tap the loaf on the bottom (you gotta remove it from the baking tin for this, so definitely use oven gloves!).



Let cool before slicing.

Saffron bloomer loaf

This recipe is pretty much exactly as detailed by Dan Lepard in The Guardian newspaper. It just seemed like a simple thing to make, and it pretty much was. While I like kneading bread, it's also a nice change to NOT have to knead bread. This bread doesn't need much effort, just 30 seconds of light kneading in total, 10 minutes apart. What's not to like?

The saffron taste and aroma was gentle but there, and the bread was just lovely. The most it takes up is time, and I watched two movies while waiting for the dough to prove. They were "Premonition", starring Sandra Bullock, and "One Small Hitch", starring an actor called Shane McRae. The first was a sort of paranormal suspense move, and the second a light comedy. While I really like Sandra Bullock, the movie itself was pretty much a clunker - I don't like unhappy endings, so that just made it worse. Shane McRae was pretty cute, though. I thought "One Small Hitch" was a good timepass movie.

And now, because this is meant to be a food blog, I will stop here and dream about Shane McRae in private. Do try this lovely bread, though. I'll be making it again for sure.

P.S. It makes fantastic toast! Try it with marmalade and peanut butter (or ok, maybe that's just me).

Recipe for: Saffron bloomer loaf

Ingredients:

A good pinch or two of saffron
150ml boiling water
150ml cold water
1 tsp fast-action yeast
100g ricotta
500g (4 cups) strong white bread flour, plus extra for shaping
50g (1/2 cup) wholemeal flour
2 tsp fine salt
Oil, for kneading

Method:

1. Put the saffron in a large mixing bowl, pour on the boiling water and leave for 10 minutes. Then add the cold water and yeast, stir well to dissolve the yeast, crumble in the ricotta and mix well.

2. Add the flours and salt, mix everything to a smooth dough, then cover and leave for 10 minutes.

3. Now lightly oil a kneading board or your kitchen worktop, and knead the dough lightly for 10 seconds. Return the dough to the bowl, leave for 10 minutes, then repeat this light knead twice more at 10-minute intervals, before leaving the dough, covered, for about an hour.

4. Lightly flour the worktop, pat the dough into a rectangle and roll up very tightly. Place the dough seam-side down on a tray lined with nonstick paper, lightly flour the top, cover with a cloth and leave for an hour until it nearly doubles.

5. Slash the risen dough three or four times with a sharp knife along the top,

and bake at 220C (200C fan-assisted)/425F/gas mark 7) for about 40 minutes.

Tip: Fill a metal dish with boiling water and place on the lowest shelf of the oven, before putting the dough in to bake, to help give the your loaf's crust a golden colour.