Bob, Bread, Burgenland, Bravo!

Making healthy bread is simple and fun.

The other night I was working late and not looking forward to making dinner. At this time of the year, it gets dark at half past four and at six o'clock it feels like the middle of the night. The minute I walked into our house the aromas of freshly baked bread enveloped me. As I looked into our kitchen I saw that Bob had made a fresh loaf of bread and a pot of homemade vegetable soup!

What a Man. As they would say in those Georgette Heyer or Jane Austin novels:
" She married well. " And just to up the ante of this fortunate occurrence, can you believe that he had even washed all and every dirty dish used?
Oh, you are correct in thinking: ' Gosh, she married really well! '

In yesterday's blog I teased you with our ( mainly Bob's ) bread recipe, and here it is:

• 500g of wholewheat flour.
• Half a cube of fresh yeast.
• A grated carrot.
• Any, all or none of the following: linseed / oats / sunflower seeds / raisins in a series of dashes.
• 1 teaspoon of salt.
• A tiny bit of sugar to activate the yeast.
• A bit of warm milk to put over the yeast.
• About a cup or so of water to mix it all together. You will need to judge the amount.

We use the weigh bowl to mix all the dry ingredients. When all is mixed we make a crater in the middle and crumble in the yeast. ( your fingers will smell a tad bit... " beerish ". ) Sprinkle the bit of sugar over the yeast and follow up with the lukewarm milk. Use the spoon to flick the flour over the liquid and thus covering it. Cover the bowl with a clean dish towel and put in a warm place for ten minutes.

Take a bread shaped oven form and coat it with either butter or greased baking paper. Turn your oven to 180 degrees. Get a jug with water and mix it in increments into the mixture. Stirring at the same time. It might take a minute or so and the mixture becomes a big lump of dough. We don't knead it, for the simple reason that we are too lazy! But you can if you want.

The dough is ready to transfer into the baking tin.

Bob does a few 'this & that's and the work is done. Put it into the oven at 180 degrees Celsius for about 55 minutes.

My nephew who is a Master Baker, told me the tip with putting a cup of water alongside the bread, whilst in the oven. It makes the crust heavenly...

When the time is up and the smell too delicious, take it out the oven and do the knife test. Stick the knife into the loaf and it should come out without any sticky stuff on it.

Here we go. Bob's healthy bread. Make sure you have butter ready for the first tasting. Our recipe is self thought out, so there might be some oops' along the way. But even with oops', it always tastes fantastic and the best thing of all, it costs less than a Euro! Have fun.

Biggi