52 New Things - Week Four

I had a busy week last week so I decided to try something relatively simple and quick for part of my 52 New Things challenge - bake bread. Turns out for an amateur like me baking bread is not as easy as I had imagined.

I'm going to let you into a little secret - I thought it might be easy as I've made bread once before. However it was the simplest recipe ever - just a packet where you had to add water so I guess that doesn't count as a real recipe or a proper bake (and therefore this still qualifies as a new task for me to try). Inspired by the Great British Bake Off I decided I wanted to make something from scratch and a little more challenging. On the BBC website they have a range of recipes different contestants have made on the Bake Off, so I chose to go for some soda/quick bread recipes from week three. Looking through these I thought, bread is easy so why bake one when I can try two! Therefore I went for savoury and a sweet recipe. These were;

Alvin's Prosciutto, manchego and balsamic onion bread and Paul's Cranberry and orange sweet soda bread.

As I don't bake often (ever) the first thing I had to do was get some supplies, including some new scales.

I started with the savoury onion bread. It seemed pretty simply, caramelising some onions, mixing some flour, butter etc. So far so good. As the recipe was for quick bread you don't use yeast to get the rise, but have baking soda and buttermilk and I think that somehow makes it rise.

The unbaked product was pretty sticky and I couldn't knead it (like I've seen all professional bakers do). I tried to rewatch the Bake Off episode to check but wasn't on iplayer any more so I had to go with the fact I was sure I remembered them saying it is called quick bread as you do not spend ages kneading it - you just give it a quick mix. So hoping for the best I popped it in the oven.

Then I started on the orange and cranberry recipe. With the fresh orange zest this one smelt divine.

It also looked a bit more like I expected it to - not too sticky, easier to shape and much lighter.

The onion bread was ready first and straight away I saw I had made a rookie mistake. It said to mix some of the onion in the bread and then put the rest on top. This just meant I had burst crusty onion on the top. The picture below was after I picked off a ton of black mess.

I have to admit it wasn't the best looking loaf. Luckily the orange and cranberry loaf was ready soon after and looked so much better. It rose better, smelt amazing and actually looked appetising!

Then it was time for the true test - the taste test! I can safely say the onion bread tasted as good as it looked. I followed the recipe exactly and there was a lot of stuff in the mix (a whole packet of prosciutto, a whole block of cheese as well as the caramelised onion) and it made the whole thing really stodgy. I think there was too much prosciutto as it was just too salty. Not a raring success by any stretch of the imagination. Luckily the day was saved by the sweat bread. It was so much lighter, the flavour was really well balanced and Stuart even wanted seconds (no one wanted seconds of the onion bread). All in all it wasn't a complete failure but I didn't find a secret love for bread making. Since I splashed out on some shiny new scales I might, at some point in the future, try making some bread where you have knead it, but I'm not in any rush to get back to the kitchen!