#marketfriday meets #breadbakers!

I'm bringing together two of my favourite communities today: #marketfriday hosted by @dswigle and #breadbakers, initiated by @akipponn.

Denise (@dswigle) has been having an amazing time looking at trailers and campers: the things you can get these days! I also liked this off grid luton box van conversion posted by @teamhumble - partly because we have a Luton van in the family.

Over on #breadbakers, @akipponn has been visiting family in Japan and has inherited a bread form for toast bread from her mum. She says she needs to practice a little more to reach her mum's standard.

Last week I had a delivery from Leicester Wholefoods. I'd wanted to try some new flours and to stock up on dried fruits, nuts and beans. I also bought some vital wheat gluten, essential for making seitan.

I'm not vegan but I'd like to eat a more plant-based diet. The BBC had a series, The Dirty Vegan, which included a great recipe for paella including a very flavoursome chorizo-like seitan. I was hooked. I also found this recipe for vegan seitan steaks, which you can freeze complete with its marinade - an added bonus.

But today was breadbaking day. I'd survived last week on a brioche loaf that I'd had in the freezer and a heel of a chilli and cheese loaf that I can't actually remember when I baked (it was great toasted with lots of butter and added cheese - home baked bread seems to keep very well).

My delivery included Marriage's very strong Canadian bread flour. Based in Essex, Marriage's have been milling since 1824:

Marriage’s mill a wide range of bread making and culinary flours, organic varieties and speciality flours, including stoneground wholemeal flour traditional milled on horizontal French Burr stones. We select the best possible grains for consistent flour quality, sourcing wheat from local Essex farmers where possible, including family farms near Chelmer Mills.

Their website has a fascinating time line from 1824 and tells the story of the six generations of the Marriage family who have run the mill. I'm slightly confused by my 100% Canadian wheat flour and the claim that most of the wheat milled comes from within 30 miles ...

I wanted to make another chilli and cheese loaf, this time using shop bought mild chillis and a mix of cheddar and parmesan cheese. I was very pleased with the crust and crumb (to say nothing of the wonderful aroma while it was baking) of this loaf, it's sturdy, holds mountains of butter and tastes delicious.

Recipe

500g Marriage's strong white bread flour
350ml warm water
125g rough grated cheese (I used cheddar and parmesan)
5 medium mild chillis, de-seeded and chopped
15ml olive oil
10ml runny honey
7g salt
7g quick action dried yeast

Mix all the dry ingredients, add the chillis and cheese, make a well and add olive oil, honey and warm water. Bring together with a big sturdy wooden spoon. I was amazed at how quickly the flour soaked up all the water.

I've been experimenting with different proportions of water, this was the first time that I had tried 70% hydration - for this flour, any less wouldn't have ben enough. I also added a little more salt than usual. I would say with the salty cheese, this was about right. Eventually, all the flour was mixed in and I had a soft pliable dough. I didn't knead it much - just a minute or two - and put quite a knobbly lumpy dough to rise in a bowl for an hour.

After a second short knead - two or three minutes - the dough was set to rise for another hour. About half an hour before I cranked up the temperature on the oven to 230 degrees centigrade and put a cast iron lidded casserole to heat. When the dough was ready, I added a baking parchment liner to the casserole and tipped the loaf into the pan, added the lid and back into the oven for 35 minutes.

It was done perfectly in that time at that heat. It had risen by about another third in the oven, with a lovely caramelised crunchy crust, and a resounding hollow sound when I tapped the bottom. I'm very pleased with the texture of the loaf - a little more open than with some of the other flours I've used. I think it will be good for sandwiches.

Next up, I made this brown tin loaf, using Shipton Mill's Organic Three Malts and Sunflower flour, which had been on special offer, just 99p!

To produce the richness of this flour, whole grains of wheat, rye and barley are steeped in water before being carefully spread on the malting floor. With time the malts naturally mature, and when ready the grains are oven-roasted to create their individual flavour and lovely golden colours. Gently blended with sunflower, sesame, linseed and pumpkin seeds, the three malts makes a delicious, well-balanced brown bread flour, the colour of speckled hens. The protein content is 12.5%. (from the website)

I've not tried this loaf yet - I'm saving it for sandwiches and toast during the week - but it smells very nice, with a definitely malty aroma. This one was in the oven a little longer at 45 minutes - 10 minutes at a slightly lower temperature and with the lid off the cast iron casserole. Recipe and hydration similar to the loaf above, using 350g of the malted flour and 150g of the strong white bread flour (and no chillis or cheese)!

My last experiment today - traditional English bread and butter pudding made using leftover brioche bread. I say traditional, in my family, this was one recipe that used currants rather than sultanas, but sultanas were what I had.

This was a dish I learned to make when I was very young, standing next to my great aunt Lucy, who lived next door to our house in South London. Lucy rarely measured anything, it was all done by feel and taste and eye and long-acquired knowledge of what worked and what didn't.

The recipe and method went something like this: take day-old white bread and slice (if you're rich and don't know any better, cut off the crusts), butter thinly with butter softened in a warm kitchen. Cut into triangles and layer into a pie dish, sprinkle with sugar between the layers. Beat an egg into half a pint of milk and pour over the bread, leave to soak for at least half an hour. Before placing in a warm oven (about 180 degrees centigrade) for 30-40 minutes, sprinkle over a handful of currants. Leave the custard to settle for twenty minutes after removing from the oven and before eating.

Nowadays all sorts of abominations are done to bread and butter pudding: Nigel Slater makes it with malt loaf and marmalade and today I discovered sticky toffee bread and butter pudding.

Both are overkill: the beauty of this pudding is its lightness and delicacy and the deliciousness of the crispy bits of browned crust and the sweetness of the currants. Of course, like so many things the recipe was a way for the frugal housekeeper to ensure every scrap of food was used, but if you want to zoush it up a little, have a little single cream or some apricots stewed in a little fruit liqueur syrup (or both).