I have a new love...
baking! It's something I have tried now and again in the past to
varying degrees of success, but not really been that enthused by.
I don't really like making cakes, they always seem the same to me,
cream butter with sugar, add eggs.... Creaming sugar and butter is
hard work and the mixture always curdles when I add the eggs. I'll
just leave all that to the professionals I think. I had thought I
felt the same way about baking, but I don't! I've discovered I like
making dough, I really enjoy kneading it, it's relaxing and feels
like a real skill. I enjoy waiting for it to 'prove'... look, I even
know proper baking terms now. It's very rewarding.
This bread was pretty
simple as breads go, it doesn’t take that long, there's no waiting
for it to prove, just mix, shape and bake... I watched Lorraine
Pascale make an olive and rosemary version of it on her new show and
decided to give it a go. I had some peppers that had roasted slowly
in
Mr. Smokerson the night before, a tin of anchovies and some thyme,
I was ready to bake. Also being trapped in a Lakeland cottage with a
monsoon going on outside it was a pretty good way to pass the time.
To start heat your oven
to 200°C
and mix 450g of self raising flour with half a teaspoon of
salt, a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil and the leaves from 5 or
6 sprigs of fresh thyme. Add 225ml of water and mix everything
thoroughly until you are left with a ball of dough.
Dust your work surface
with some flour and flatten out the ball of dough into a circle. I
peeled and chopped one roasted red pepper and chopped half a tin of
anchovies for my filling. You could use any combination of fillings
you fancy really; chopped green or black olives, roast soft garlic,
diced chorizo, roasted tomatoes. I'll be trying some more
combinations soon, but the pepper and anchovy mix was delicious.
Pile your filling into
the centre of the dough and start to fold the edges over the top
until it is sealed. Turn the dough over and knead it to distribute
the pepper and anchovies. This is quite a messy process, especially
with a wet filling, as they do start to squidge out, but just push
them back in with your finger and keep going. The aim is a ball of
dough with the filling mixed through inside. Once you have it under
control flatten it out a bit and squash the handle of a wooden spoon
into it to create triangular segments.
Finally bake in the
oven, Lorraine said 35 minutes for her olive version, mine ended up
taking about 50 minutes, which is probably because of the plentiful
wet fillings I used. It should be golden and risen and sound hollow on
the bottom when tapped. The combination of sweet smoky peppers and
salty anchovies, with fresh thyme, layered through warm fresh bread
is totally delicious. It's a good, simple and tasty place to start
experimenting with baking.
