It’s that time of year when foodie mags and weekend supps are padding out their pages with soup recipes, and rightly so. You really can’t beat a bowl of the stuff when it’s cold and windy and wet outside. And where there’s soup, there has to be bread for dunking in it – not bread of the sliced-loaf variety but bread of the more artisany tear-and-share type.
I’m a total sucker for sourdough, or a nice boule, oven-warmed and then slathered in butter. Making bread from scratch, though, has never appealed – that whole kneading thing being a bit of a turn-off. So when I found this recipe online at The Slow Roasted Italian which sounded delicious AND required nothing more than a good stir, I knew I had to give it a go! Smart move on my part!
Simple really is an understatement. In fact, this recipe is simpler than simple and another of those ones where the effort-to-taste ratio is crazy – heavily biased towards taste (hurrah!)
I can’t say I wasn’t a little suspicious about the total lack of kneading and yeast involved, but my loaf baked up very very nicely. Unsurprisingly, it was denser than a traditional loaf but it was perfect for purpose and absolutely hit the spot when buttered up and paired with a big bowl of soup. I wouldn’t try and make a sandwich using it, though …
Much, if not all, of the credit for the final flavour has to go to Hubby who was in charge of the beer selection – he went for an Innis & Gunn which is his go-to beer for drinking and cooking: a lovely homegrown brew. He opted for their Rum Finish, which was a little darker, to get a punchier flavour. Totally the right choice!
Hubby was also in charge of the cheese combo as I am rubbish when it comes to the stuff (cheese boards actually terrify me) and went for a mild cheddar (Arran) and an Emmental which was plenty cheesy enough for me.
If I had any advice to give it would be to start with milder cheeses to figure out what they’re adding, and then experiment accordingly. And to have a go at making this bread. Go on … It’s SO easy, it would be a shame not to. ;)
STUFF YOU'LL NEED
387g all-purpose flour (3 cups)
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
3 tbsp granulated sugar
156g shredded cheese (1¼ cup; mix up to three different types)
340ml/12 ounce beer (I&G was a wee bit over so we just poured it all in)
4 rashers of cooked bacon, chopped
2 tbps butter, melted
OTHER STUFF YOU'LL NEED
Large mixing bowl
Loaf tin
Get the oven on first and preheat to 175 ºC/350 ºF, then grease your loaf tin with butter and set aside. Cook the bacon. (I usually like mine crispy but for this I kept it quite ‘soft’.) Drain on kitchen towel and then snip or cut into wee pieces. Melt the butter and set aside.
STIR!
Put the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar in your mixing bowl. Mix it all up with a whisk and then make a well in the middle. Into the well put the bacon, about ¾ of the cheese and then pour in the beer. Stir with a wooden spoon until it’s all combined.
And that’s it! Seriously! All that’s left to do is to pour the mixture into the loaf tin, top with the rest of the cheese, drizzle over half the melted butter, and then pop it into the oven.
Take out of the oven, drizzle the rest of the butter over the top, and then pop it back in again.
Bake for another 25–30 minutes, by which time the cheese should be nicely browned on the top. When you tap the loaf it should thump.
Give it five minutes to cool a little and then pop the loaf out of the tin. (It should literally fall out.)
Leave on a wire rack to cool. We gave it about 20 minutes and then scoffed it with a big bowl of soup. Epic!
There are many more recipes, tasty tips and foodie thoughts on Fiona Booth's blog at www.fifigoesnom.com/