Two Tear & Share Loafs from one basic bread recipe

Fresh, homemade bread has to be one of my biggest vices. I. DO. LOVE. FRESH. BREAD.  It doesn't last long in our house, so I try not to make home made bread too often as I could eat too much of it.

Tear and share type breads are both easy and fun to make. My pretty red KitchenAid food mixer has improved my bread and also made it much quicker to make as it takes the work out of the kneading of dough. Saying that, kneading dough is terribly therapeutic !

Making two loaves of bread at the same time is something I would never do. It's just too much....or at least, it WAS. A basic bread recipe with 500g of flour fits in a 2lb loaf mould or tin. However, we now have new 1lb loaf moulds. A 1lb loaf tin is a really hard size to find these days. To get the size for this, I used a very old tin that belonged to my grandmother and had many many years of use. 

We developed it into a new style silicone mould which is now available in both black and red. These are heavy duty and have feet supports built in just like the larger 2lb and extra large 3lb moulds. Main benefit here is that I can make one basic bread recipe and split it into two smaller loafs.

So easy, it's childs play ! Honestly, after the mixer did the work and the dough had first prove, I made the sweet bread and Oliver (aged not quite 3yo) made the savoury one last weekend

Basic Bread recipe

500g strong white bread flour

1 tablespoon of olive oil (or a knob of butter)

1 tablespoon of sugar

1.1/2 teaspoons of salt

1 sachet of fast action dried yeast (for breadmakers)

320ml warm milk (or water)

Put all the dry ingredients in your food mixer (fitted with dough hook) and add the warmed milk. I prefer to use milk for tear and share type breads, and water for plain, standard slicing bread.

Leave it to be worked by the mixer at a medium speed for around 10mins. Remove the bowl, cover with some cling film and leave until doubled in size. Depending on the temperature, this could take anywhere from 30 mins to overnight ! This time of year, I find it takes about 40mins. Now your dough is ready to use.

Divide the dough into two batches. It's going to be puffy and deflate as soon as you start handling it - but don't worry - that's normal and we'll do another short rise later. Keep one batch aside to use and shove the other back in the bowl under the cling film.

The iced apple & pecan tear and share bread was going to be too hard for Oliver, so I did this one.

INGREDIENTS 

soft, brown sugar

cinnamon

1 medium sized apple (finely chopped)

fistful of pecan nuts, coarsely chopped

salted butter

First of all, I rolled the dough out to a large thin strip on my silicone rolling work mat. You may need a little flour for dusting your rolling pin (and your work surface if you don't have a silicone mat). I then used a blunt table knife to cut it lengthways into two narrower strips.

You'll see there are no quantities. All I can say is use liberally. You can't really go wrong !

Butter the dough strips on one side. Sprinkle them all over with a good covering of the soft, light brown sugar and give a good dusting with cinnamon (as much or as little as you like !) and then top with the chopped apple pieces.

From the end, roll over about 1.1/2 turns and then cut through with the blunt table knife. I managed to get 8 rolls. Wedge these into your mould, two abreast and then dot the tops with butter. I like to use salted butter as I love the combination of sweetness and salt.

Put on top of a baking tray and leave for about 20mins to rise a little before baking in a fan oven at about 180deg C (190deg C normal) for around 30 mins.

Remove from oven.

Ooops - a little too much butter on top. The bread rises a bit more in the oven, so excess ran off.

Make up some glaze if desired from some icing sugar mixed with fresh orange juice to form a thick paste. Spread this on top of the hot bread. Much of it will melt in and the rest will set on the top

I'm sure you can see why this didn't last long ! Shared between 4, it disappeared fast !

The sugar and butter with apples produces a appley caramel syrupy goo. Soooo yummy !

See the apples in the middle of each piece. This smelt and tasted SO good !

ok.... enough of the apple and pecan bread... and on to the savoury. 

There are not so many photos of this as I was rather tied up helping Oliver and supervising.

With the second batch of dough, take it out the bowl and rip it up into loads of little balls. For photos of what I mean see this post here about Monkey Bread.

For this savoury bread we used :

pepperoni

tomato puree (slightly thinned with a tiny bit of water)

cheese ( in this case we used red leicester)

sliced red peppers

cherry tomatoes

olive oil

STEP 1

Oliver : rip up pepperoni

Mummy : crumble cheese (or grate)

STEP 2

Oliver : Take the balls and dip each one in olive oil

Mummy : smear some of the balls with some tomato puree

Pop them into the 1lb loaf mould. 

STEP 3

Oliver : sprinkle on some cheese. Scatter some pepperoni and sliced bell pepper

Mummy : sprinkle on a little fresh thyme (sparingly !)

Repeat steps 2 & 3 until mould is full and all dough balls used.

Put some cherry tomatoes on top to make it pretty and leave for 20 minutes or so to rise a little.

Bake as per the apple and cinnamon bread...

Although both loaves were made on the one day, I put the apple pecan one in the fridge and we baked Oliver's savoury loaf first. The apple pecan loaf was baked the following day and went straight from the fridge to the oven.

Happy baking !

Sarah-Jane & Oliver Nash, August 2011 - www.siliconemoulds.com

Christmas Breads, a Christmas Story & special present

I made some tear and share breads on Boxing Day. At the moment, I'm still at my parents' house in Scotland with Oliver - but we fly back tomorrow. It's fair to say that this has been an eventful trip !

We were due to fly up early on the morning of Christmas Eve. I woke Oliver at 6am and got him ready. My husband and I had our bags packed from the night before, ready to leave first thing that morning. On the realisation that we were about to fly to Scotland and Santa was on his way, Oliver was rather excited to say the least. "Oliver go to Nanny's. Oliver go to Nanny's on plane ! Oliver go now to Nanny's !" he chanted all the way to the airport.

At the last set of traffic lights just before the entrance to the airport, realisation dawned. Steve had forgotten to bring his wallet containing his ID and we were not going to be able to fly without it. Damn and blast ! There was no option but to turn tail and go home for his wallet.... Perhaps Oliver wasn't going to Nanny's and maybe Santa would not come :-(

The roads were really icy and slippy and the return trip home simply took too long. It was impossible to get back to the airport to make the flight - so the only alternative was to make the journey by car.... Approx 8 hours drive versus 1.1/4 hours by plane.

I must say - I really thought such a long car journey would be an absolute nightmare with a toddler.... but Oliver was good as gold the whole way and kept checking whith us that we WERE going to Nanny's.

On Boxing Day, I decided to make some tear and share bread for everyone as a treat... Most especially as I fancied something yummy ! We were meant to go to my aunt and uncle's for Christmas dinner with the rest of the family the previous day, but things didn't exactly work out to plan. Oliver had taken rather poorly again on Christmas eve with fever and vomitting which continued right through Christmas day (and beyond). Thankfully, he was bright enough early in the morning for an hour of opening presents from Santa

My husband and I stayed with Oliver at my parents and had toast and cheese on Christmas day, instead of joining everyone for Christmas dinner

A sick Oliver asleep in front of the television on Christmas day.

My wonderful parents had a very special Christmas present for me which was totally overwhelming. They had created a hard back book of my blog to date - basically a whole year of blogging with all the photos and recipes ! It's such a super thing to have, and extra special to me because there are so many photos of Oliver in it too.

There is an online sharing application which lets me let you all look through it too ! However, it doesn't like me altering the html to centre it on the page for some reason - so apologies for that.

SiliconeMoulds.com See What's Cooking! by Sarah-Jane - SiliconeMoulds.com | Make Your Own Book

Recipe below is enough for two "special" tear and share style breads.

Bread recipe

1000g / 1kg of strong white bread flour

50 g melted butter

3 x sachets of instant yeast

3 egg yolks

2tbsp of sugar

1.1/2 tsp salt

600ml lukewarm water

Mix the ingredients together in a bowl until they come together. Knead for about 10mins until dough forms a smooth ball and glutens develop. Split into two pieces (or just make 1/2 the recipe !)and put each piece into a bowl covered with oiled cling film. Leave in a warm place until doubled in size.

When the dough has had it's first rise, take one of the pieces at a time and roll it into a long, flat piece - about 600mm long x 200mm deep. Spread the first few inches of the dough with the filling of your choice.

I chose 3 fillings. My first bread was some leftover sweet mincemeat. One half of this bread, I also sprinkled dreid cranberries and broken pecan nuts onto the mincemeat. On the other half, I placed tiny little balls of marzipan.

The third filling (for the second bread) is not shown unrolled - but was a homemade cranberry sauce made with orange zest and sloe gin and finished after cooking with some melted dark chocolate.

Roll up your bread from the long end like a giant sausage - adding more filling as is required along the way. You want the filling to stop about 1" / 25mm before the end so you have some plain dough left to seal the bread. Brush this bare section with a little beaten egg wash or some milk.

Cut the giant bread dough sausages into 2" high sections and stand on a non stick bakeware tray. I like to use a 10" round silicone baking pan mould at home. This gives a really good shape to this type of bread and it comes out looking like a big wheel. Search the blog for bread if you want to see examples.

Leave these to rise for about 30mins before baking. I think they took about 15mins in a 170deg fan oven.

 Sweet mincemeat and marzipan tear and share bread - topped with toasted almond flakes. This can also be liberally dusted with icing sugar on removing from the oven.

Pretty - isn't it ?

Whilst I had a little time "creating" in the kitchen, Pappy (grandad) and Oliver had a snooze...

Well - it's almost all over now ! In under an hour, Oliver and I leave for the airport to fly home. Unfortunately, Oliver is still not very well. Steve (my long suffering husband) drove home on Tuesday and as lovely as our visit here has been, it will also be good to get home.

Sarah-Jane Nash - Siliconemoulds.com 30/12/2010

Banana & Chocolate Tear & Share Bread - for Eve !

You may remembar a couple of weeks ago I made an AntiPasto Tear and Share Bread....

I also had an idea of recreating the same as a sweet version with bananas and chocolate which Eve liked the sound of.

I made this for the girls shorlty after, but have never got round to posting the photos...

It's a basic bread dough... tweaked :

500g strong white bread flour

1.1/2 teaspoons salt

4 tablespoons of honey (I used orange blossom runny honey)

Sachet of breadmaker yeast

300ml of milk (instead of the normal water)

30ml approx of olive oil.

Make up as normal bread dough and knead until smooth and silky. Leave to prove until doubled in size.

Knock it back and then roll out into a large rectangle.

After that, it's a case of putting in chocolate chunks and bananas and rolling it up.

This is the second or third row of chocolate and banana being rolled in ! You'll definately get banana and chocolate right the way through this one :-)

Finished bread rolled up like a log is above.

Now I chop it up into rolls about 2" or so deep. These are then spaced out into a 10" diameter silicone bakeware mould. The bread sections will grow into each other and take up the excess space. This is a super handy pan to have and very versatile.. I use this one for loads of things.... bread, cakes, a cooking container on top of the baking tray in the halogen oven / cooker. 

I then pop it back in the halogen oven for a second prove for another 15 > 20 mins. Halogen cooker is FANTASTIC for proving bread. Set the temperature half way between off and defrost setting for proving bread. It's great summer and winter to keep a constant proving heat.

Whack the heat up to 180 > 200deg C in fan oven or halogen oven and cook for approx 25 > 30minutes until done. On removing, drizzle all over with more runny honey and leave to cool for a bit before serving

I challenge you to ONLY eat one bit !

Sarah-Jane Nash - http://www.siliconemoulds.com/ / http://www.naturalheating.co.uk/ - July 2010

Antipasto Tear and Share Bread - A Meal in a Loaf !

I saw Jamie Oliver on television briefly last night making something rather similar to this. It's one of those really versatile recipes where you can throw almost anything at it that you have in the fridge.

Basically, you make up a batch of bread dough. I used just a standard bread recipe - 500g flour, sachet of fast yeast, 2 tsp sugar, 1.1/2 tsp salt, good glug of olive oil and 300ml of warm water.

Make the bread dough as you would normally, and leave covered to rise for 30mins or until doubled in size.

Knock the dough back and roll it out into a rectangle about 1cm thick

Then, it's time to fill your bread. I chose to spread mine with red pesto and fill with some chopped antipasto. I'd griddled off 4 bell peppers, 1 courgette and a rather enormous onion.

There was a ball of mozarella lurking in the fridge, so I tore that up and put it along one long edge of my rectange. Then, I rolled the rectangle over the cheese and spread out the chopped antipasto over the rest of the bread dough - keeping it away from the last 2"in length of the rectangle.

Roll the bread dough until you end up with something resembling a swiss roll.

Chop off 2 > 3" chunks and stand them end up in a 10" round silicone baking pan mould. Don't worry about excess space. The bread is best left to sit for 20mins or so now and will expand into leftover space.

Pop it in the oven - 180 > 190deg C fan oven for 25 > 30 mins

When you bring it out, drizzle with olive oil and leave to cool a little before serving.

There is gooey mozarella in the centre of each section.

Too yummy for words. I'm planning on making a banana and chocolate version of this for the girls and toddlers for a picnic lunch on Friday.

Sorry for the rubbish photos - the half light outside made lighting really poor for photos indoors and we were too hungry to wait until it got really dark just for the sake of pictures !

Garlic Tear and Share Bread

Blogger has been a real pain today and I've struggled for ages to get my photos to load - almost to the point of giving up !

Anyway, I decided to make a Garlic tear and share type bread on Friday and it turned out really well. The prinicples are the same as any other bread.

I made a basic bread mix according to the bread flour bag instructions. Strong Bread Flour, water, yeast, salt and sugar. Kneaded, covered and set aside in a warm place to rise to double in size.

After first rise, pinch off pieces of dough approx 1/2" to 1" dia in size. I dunked these into 50grams of melted butter mixed with 50mls of olive oil with 3 cloves of finely minced / crushed garlic. Then, all the balls went into a 10" round silicone bakeware mould.

I sprinkled some chopped chives over the top along with some thin shavings of butter.

This then went to sit in a warm place for a second rise. At this time of year, our kitchen isn't warm enough unless the oven is on. It's therefore ideal to make bread at the same time as a good old roast... I take the grill out of the top oven and put my bread dough in there to prove in a bowl on top of a rack. The heat from the oven below gets it going nicely.

Just before baking, I decided to crumble a little cheddar cheese over the top. The butter had nicely melted over the top. I baked at 180deg in a fan oven for a little over 15 mins. On taking out, brush some melted butter over the top.

This was easily enough to do 6 > 8 people. We only used 1/2 between 3 of us alongside some casserole. Next time, I think I'd make in 2 x 2lb loaf tins - so I could par-bake one and freeze for another day.

Truly yummy treat though ! You'll need to take my word on it - I had so many photos that I thought I'd delete all the ones I didn't need. I forgot though that I hadn't reduced and saved any BAKED photos though and mistakenly deleted all of those from my camera card - so I can't show you how good it looked baked....

It was moist, buttery and very garlicky. Mmmmmmm

Sarah-Jane - http://www.siliconemoulds.com/ - April 2010