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    Tuesday, July 31, 2007

    A New Baby and Continuing on the Theme of Cheese and Olives.

    Great News the long awaited event has happened.
    Cleo Harriet Noble was born at 1.50pm 29th July 2007
    8lb 8ozs - 49 cms long
    Of course what does a good Mother do when her daughter is in labour?
    Bake!
    October 16th is World Bread Day such fun breads to make and absolutely delicious

    So continuing on the Cheese and Olive Theme
    I baked Cheese and Olive bread.

    I have been very impressed with James Martin. He showed me how to make good pizza and foccacio in fact I have used his recipe frequently, which as it turns out I have never posted…must do that.
    So I have been making bread on and off for a couple of years now.
    Not bad…usually have a good crumb, tastes really good but usually best eaten on the day. Mind you I think the old adage “practice makes perfect” is very true here.
    The more you make the better the feel you have for it.
    First the smell as the yeast works in the dough...then as it cooks…divine.
    I have also used 00 Italian flour which may also have helped.
    He also suggested using packaged yeast. Elfin has 8 gms packets…perfect.
    I was always throwing out my bottle of yeast as it had gone past it’s use by dated but the little foil packets are wonderful.
    There are a couple of hints don’t put the salt near the yeast till it is mixed with the liquids.
    Salt will kill yeast.

    Anyway I watched an old episode of James Martin “Sweet” he had a guest Paul Hollywood, (a baker of some note) and this is I think the best bread I’ve made so far.
    His recipe was for Mandarin and Chocolate.
    I then adapted it on Cleo’s birthday to Cheese and Olives.
    Excellent

    First the recipe for Mandarin and Chocolate.

    500 gms bread flour
    15 gms yeast 2 packets Elfin Yeast
    15 gms sugar
    15 gms table salt
    Splash olive oil
    260 mls warm water

    1 tin mandarins drained and squeezed
    1 cup chocolate chips
    Little extra flour to soak up the juice from the mandarins

    In a large bowl place flour yeast, sugar and salt
    Add olive oil
    Add water (hand hot)

    Mix well with a spatula till all the dry ingredients are mixed and the bowl is pretty clean.
    You may need to add a little more water it all depends on the day
    The dough should be moist. Dry dough makes tough bread.

    Turn out onto flour covered bench and start to knead.












    Start off folding from all sides in adding more flour as needed.

    Keep this folding motion up till the dough starts to get smoother
    Then start kneading with the old push away and bring back method.

    Now Paul Hollywood said hold to the dough up and pull in into a circle shape

    If it holds and doesn’t break the gluten should have stretched enough.

    Roll in into a ball

    And place back into your mixing bowl, which you have greased
    And cover with a tea-towel until doubled in size .
    Should take about an hour depending on the temperature of the room.
    Meanwhile drain the mandarins and in a sieve and squeeze as much juice out as possible.

    When the dough has risen pull it away from the sides
    and push down into a rectangular shape onto a floured bench.

    Put the squeezed mandarins and chocolate chips on the dough and
    start folding in again Till all amalgamated.

    You will need more flour.
    Just keep kneading around till smooth
    Word of advice, if you intend making lots of bread
    Invest in one of these scrapers
    Particularly good when working  with wet dough
    Pick up and dump
    Perfect
     Then shape as below and lay on a floured baking sheet
    Dust well with flour and make some slashes along the top with a sharp knife
    Leave to rise again covered with the tea towel (about 1/2 hour)
    Bake in 220C oven for 30 minutes
    Fabulous
    So to make the Cheese and Olive bread substitute
    Replaced the mandarins and chocolate chips with
    ½ cup chopped olives and 1 cup of your choice of cheese cubed.
    Proceed as above

    So the fruits of my labour while Katie was producing
    this gorgeous little baby

    Welcome to our world Little Cleo


    8 comments:

    Lisa Johnson said...

    Congratulations on the arrival of Cleo! She's beautiful!

    The bread looks really good too. I haven't made bread in a while. I always make a loaf. Maybe I should try a round like this one.

    Barbara said...

    Congrats...and she is gorgeous. I saw How To Cook Your Life last week at the festival and it had some wonderful bread kneading scenes.

    Katie Zeller said...

    Awwww, Sweet Baby!
    And I;ll have 2 slices of the Cheese and Olive, please!

    FH said...

    Congrats Grandma!! She is beautiful.
    That bread is adorable too!:))

    Jim said...

    Lovely bread, and a lovely baby. Congratulations!

    So So Simple said...

    Thank you all. It's pretty exciting in our neck of the woods at the moment.
    Hope you try the bread it is very good.

    Anonymous said...

    How precious! Congratulations!

    So So Simple said...

    Shawnda
    Thank you I am basking in the glory a bit I have to admit.