I have always loved the idea of homemade bread, and the aroma it produces in your home is so inviting that I have played around with making my own bread for many many years now. I have done it all from homemade Irish Soda bread to the much more time consuming sourdoughs. Eventually I got a bread maker and started by making the standard regular bread recipe it came with. After a while, I began to be creative with it, and played around with my own recipes until I came up with the recipe below which turned out to be a winner in our household. While my kids were all at home I would make this everyday and they all loved it.
Last month, after many long years of faithful service, my breadmaker died and I started making this recipe by hand. It worked out just as well and since I don’t have to make bread everyday anymore, it’s quick and easy enough to make it this way. I hope you enjoy this bread as much as we do!
Dellamarie’s Malted Bread Loaf
Ingredients:
- 330ml warm water
- 20ml organic olive oil
- 7g active dry yeast
- 1 & ½ tbsp. Meridian Organic Blackstrap Molasses[1]
- Large pinch sea salt
- 500g Matthews Organic Cotswold Crunch Flour[2]
- Mixed organic seeds of choice. I like to use a mixture of sunflower, pumpkin, poppy, carraway and linseed in any combination, but you can add whatever seeds you like, or you can leave them out entirely.
Method:
- Sprinkle yeast into the warm water in a small bowl, mix and set aside for a few minutes until the mixture starts to bubble.
- Put the molasses, olive oil and yeast mixture into a large mixing bowl, I use the one from my stand mixer as I use the mixer to do the kneading.
- Add the flour, salt and seeds and mix well. I use my stand mixer for this on a medium speed.
- After dough has formed, mix for another 3 minutes on medium speed or if doing this by hand, knead dough on a floured surface for 3-5 minutes.
- Bring dough together into the centre of the bowl and cover with lightly oiled cling film and a clean dry tea towel. Leave in a warm, draught free area for 1 hour to rise.
- Knock back the dough* and lightly knead again on a floured surface.
- Place into a loaf tin and cover again with cling film and tea towel and leave to rise again for 30-45mins.
- Place in the centre of a pre-heated oven at 220C for 30mins.
- Remove from oven and allow to cool on a rack before serving. I would recommend removing it from the baking tin at this point because the condensation from the cooling bread pools in the tin and makes the lower crust soggy.
* lightly punch down the inflated dough before kneading it for a second time.
This bread can be made in a bread maker, just put the ingredients into your pan in the order the manufacturer states and put on regular bread setting. In fact, this is how I originally made this bread until my breadmaker gave up the ghost and I had to revert to my mixer while awaiting a new one.
