My Recent Bread Adventures & a Recipe!

Hello sweeties!

It has been a while since I wrote a new post. I was very busy in our garden allotment & made easy recipes from my blog & from other bloggers. Sometimes, we need that for inspiration, don’t we?

Also, I have baked many breads lately. Yesterday, I made my own very 1st recipe with joke-made sourdough!!! Ooh yes! I am ever so proud! It is a semi-wholegrain bread with my own sourdough starter. The night before, I used a bit of it & fermented it during 12 hours & the next day, after 7 hours in the 2nd rise, these beautiful beauty came to life. Check it out!

Waw!

Because, I didn’t use up all of my starter, I wanted to make 2 sourdough pizzas! I searched the internet for easy recipes. I found this lovely one HERE!

It was a straight forward recipe because, I used my pre fermented starter in here! I only had to rest the dough for 30 minutes in the fridge to stiff up a bit. So it is easier to roll out too. I tweaked a few things to my liking & this was 1 of my 2 lovely sourdough pizzas! I used less salt, only 1/2 teaspoon & used less oil. I made little air holes with my fork prior to pre baking the crusts & I didn’t oil my pizzas before placing the top ingredients on it because my sauce base was already oily. It was an aubergine red bell pepper spread. The round pizza shape isn’t there yet but nevertheless, the pizza was superb & ooh so delicious too! A 10/10 from my husband & myself!

In fact, we never tasted a sourdough pizza before!

Then, a few days ago, I invented this lovely semi-wholegrain Irish soda bread with big raisins. This time, I soaked the raisins in just boiled water for 30 minutes. I never did that before. What a difference that made! This way the raisins soak up the liquid, are very big & juicy too! A bread slice was delicious smeared with butter & a home-made red currant strawberry jam. The jam was made from fruits from our own organic garden! Ooh yes!

It can’t get better than that! Oh no! Let’s see the yummy bread:

Can you see the cross?

Here just plain slices & others smeared with butter & my home-made red currant strawberry jam:

Let’s see how easy it was to make!

Recipe: For 1 medium Irish Raisin Soda Bread = 12 slices = 720 gram

Ingredients:

1 cup big raisins

just boiled hot water, just enough to cover the raisins

3 tablespoons cold butter

1 cup organic semi-wholegrain flour ( I used French T 80)

1 cup organic whole-wheat flour ( I used French T 150)

2 tablespoons raw dark agave

1 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup low-fat kefir

Method:

Begin by soaking your raisins in a fitted bowl. Cover them with just boiled water. Leave them to stand for 30 minutes. Drain all the water. Your raisins are now soft, big & juicy!
Preheat your oven to 190°C ( 375 F) for about 15 minutes.
Take a large bowl & add 2 flours, agave, baking soda & salt. Mix well with a spoon. With help of your fingertips, crumble the butter down until the mixture resembles bigger breadcrumbs. Mix it through the mix. Add the soaked raisins to the dough & mix well with a spoon. Finally, with a spoon, mix the kefir into the dough mix. Now, knead it all together for 1 minute or so until the dough comes together. Take dough out on your kitchen counter & only knead it lightly until it all comes together. If it sticks to the bench, use a dough scraper to help you. Try to avoid adding flour!! Shape a roundish bread shape.
Take a round bread baking pan & oil all sides with sunflower oil. Place the bread in the middle of it. Now, with a sharp knife or a single-edged razor blade, this is what I use, slash a cross into the crust of your bread. Not to deep though, about 1.5-2,5 cm deep. I opened my cross a bit with this sharp razor blade below! The look after, looks professional, I think!

I use this tool to score my breads!

Place your bread baking tin onto an oven rack & place into the lower end of your oven. Bake for about 30 minutes until beautifully browned on top or until the bread sounds hollow when you tap on the bottom below. I lowered my oven temperature to 180°C after 15 minutes because I didn’t want my crust to burn & to get too brown aka black! Ha! :(. When fully baked, take out the oven tin with oven gloves. take the bread out & tap on the bottom to see if your bread is fully baked through. It was, so I placed the bread onto a rack to cool down completely. This bread makes 12 slices. It is so yummy smeared with butter & topped with young cheese, home-made jam. Enjoy this lovely bread packed with full yummy flavors! If there is some bread left, store in a bread bag! Enjoy sweeties! Till next time!