Back in March The Fabulous Baker Brothers landed on my door step. I had enjoyed watching them battle it out on Lifestyle Food and decided I wanted more of what they had to offer so I ordered their book.
Within a few months I was baking the majority of my own bread.
I started by making a lot of hot cross buns and the odd bread loaf here and there around easter. The hot cross buns were better than anything you can buy in the shops, seriously. The recipe also works fabulously well cooked as a fruit loaf for cafe style toast infinitely better than the stuff that comes pre sliced and packed in a plastic bag.
My eldest is partial to rye sourdough and I only eat good bread. The stuff in the plastic bags makes my stomach start twisting in knots just looking at it. By making it myself I know that the flour is top quality and my per loaf cost is about half what I pay if I buy bread of a similar quality.
I convinced my sister pretty quickly that if you make it at the same time as you are getting dinner organised you probably won't even notice the extra bit of work.
Leave it for the first prove while you eat and do the dishes, punch it down, pop it in a tin for it's second rise and it will be good for the oven by the time you have the kids tucked in. Our husbands have both embraced the regular baking of bread now too.
I buy my flour in bulk, 5kg bags of Kialla Organic Wholemeal Spelt and 10kg bags of Laucke Organic Wholemeal wheat. I also buy Organic Rye and a biodynamic 85% wholegrain white flour in smaller quantities and mix that in depending on what I am making. Most of the time I use a roughly 50/50 split of spelt/wheat but feel free to mix it around to suit you and your family. I explain more about why I choose organic flour here.
By making my own bread I also don't need to drag any children to the shops to buy a loaf. Ever. That, in itself, is justification alone in my book. I have a Kenwood Chef to do all the mixing for me. Anything that has a dough hook will work just as well, or you can take to it in the old fashioned way and knead by hand.
These cheese and bacon rolls are an extension of my basic recipe and I make them once or twice every week. The best thing about these is that they are perfect for lunchboxes. All they need is to be split in half and spread with a lashing of butter and they are pretty much guaranteed to be devoured.
Cheese & Bacon Rolls - Makes 12-16
Ingredients
560g flour (Usually I use 300g spelt and 260g wholemeal wheat but use whatever mix that works for you)
2 tsp dried yeast
25mL olive oil
330-350mL warm water
4 rashers bacon, trimmed and chopped
150g cheese (tasty or mozzarella), grated
Method
Combine the flour, water, yeast and oil in the bowl of your mixer and mix on low for about 10 minutes.
The dough will first form a ball and then relax back to something more gooey when the mixing stage is finished.
Pop it into a bowl to prove in a warm place. Leave it for about an hour or until doubled in size.
Oil a large baking tin.
When the dough has risen punch it down, remove from the bowl and cut in to 12-16 equal portions. Shape gently into balls and arrange in the tin.
Spread the bacon and cheese evenly over the tops and set aside to rise in a warm place for another 30-40 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 230C shortly before you are ready to pop the rolls in to the oven. Once they are ready to go pop the rolls in and turn down the heat to 210C after 10 minutes.
Cook for a further 10-15 minutes.
When the rolls are done pull them out of the oven and slide from the tray on to a cooling rack.
Try not to burn your tongue if you absolutely must sample one right now with some good butter. Share it with your partner or a child if you are feeling generous :)
Have you ever baked your own bread? Is it something you would like to try? It really easy quite an easy undertaking if you have a machine to take the hard work out of the kneading, or a therapeutic one if you are kneading my hand.
Tatum xx
