Caramelised Onion and Rosemary Malted Loaf for Real Bread Week

I admit it. I’ve fallen hook, line and sinker for my new bread maker. Sage Appliances knew what they were doing when they earmarked me for this campaign! We are a loafing family of bread lovers, so how could we not welcome a bread maker with open arms and join in with Real Bread Week? Yep, we’ve been reeled in good and proper.

You may have already seen my glowing review of the Sage Appliances Custom Loaf Pro last week – if not you should hop on over to get the lowdown on this sleek and silver beast of bakery-smelling amazingness.

Cracking on, here’s my recipe for a rather special loaf I created to celebrate Real Bread Week. It’s designed to be cooked in the Custom Loaf Pro, but you could easily adapt it to be made by hand.

I’ve used a mixture of strong white bread flour and this amazing Organic Malthouse Bread Flour I found from Doves Farm.

The onion and rosemary flavours shone through the loaf and made the house smell unbelievably good while it was baking. The first taste of a thick buttered slice was completely outrageous. Can you see why i’m so into my bread maker?! There really is no caparison to a freshly baked loaf of bread.

Here’s the recipe, and if you scroll down you’ll find a list of Heston Blumenthal’s tips for bread making…

Caramelised Onion and Rosemary Malted Loaf

Makes 1 x 750g loaf

Ingredients

For the flavourings
1 onion, finely chopped
1 tbsp olive oil
pinch sea salt flakes
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp chopped fresh rosemary

For the loaf
310ml water
1 tbsp olive oil
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
250g strong white bread flour
200g malthouse bread flour
1 tbsp milk powder
1 1/4 tsp fast action dried yeast

Method

1. Make your caramelised onions by finely chopping the onion and then gently cooking it in a pan with the olive oil and salt until it starts to soften. Stir through the sugar and then turn the heat right the way down to its lowest setting and continue to cook until it caramelises and turns dark brown. Transfer to a little dish to allow it to cool and dry off a bit.

2. Chop the rosemary and pop it into the flavourings hatch on the bread machine. Add the bread ingredients to the bread maker in the order they’re listed in the recipe and then set it to the wholewheat setting.

3. When it bleeps after the second knead and the rosemary has dropped in, add the caramelised onion into the machine via the main lid. I think it’d be a bit sticky to use the hatch.

4. Once the loaf is baked, removed to a wire rack to cool, and then slice and enjoy with lashings of butter.

Do you like the look of the soup? It’s a delicious Roasted Cherry Tomato and Basil Soup that’s perfect for dunking a doorstop buttered slice of this Caramelised Onion and Rosemary bread into… I whizzed it up in my Optimum Froothie 9400 power blender for a super smooth result.

Here’s the very easy recipe in case you’d like to make a batch.

Roasted Cherry Tomato and Basil Soup

Serves 4-6
Prep time: 5 mins
Cook time: 40 mins

Ingredients
1 kg cherry tomatoes
1 tbsp olive oil
pinch sea salt flakes
freshly ground black pepper
1 tsp dried oregano
handful fresh basil leaves
1 tbsp good quality balsamic vinegar
500ml vegetable stock
pesto to serve

Instructions
1. Pre-heat the oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6. Put the cherry tomatoes into a roasting tin with the olive oil, salt, pepper and dried oregano and roast for 40 minutes.

2. Pop into the blender jug along with the basil, balsamic vinegar and vegetable stock and blitz until smooth. Reheat when you’re ready to serve with a swirl of pesto on the top and a thick slice of buttered caramelised onion bread for dunking!

 

Heston’s hints and tips for bread making

• Bread and pastry all begin with dough. But what makes them so different? The key here is liquid, temperature and relaxation (and I am not talking about relaxing at the pub with a pint!). Liquids such as water react with gluten proteins in the flour to make the dough more elastic. Hence adding water to flour, as well as kneading, will promote elasticity in the dough – also known as gluten development. This is great when creating bread.

• A pre-ferment containing just flour, yeast and water will help add flavour and texture to the bread. Most pre-ferments take approximately 24 hours. Once comfortable with this method, some ingredients can be substituted for added flavour.

• When working with wet doughs such as brioche burger buns, it is very important to sift all of the dry ingredients. This will help avoid any lumps in the ingredients in the dough.

• Excess flour is an issue when shaping or balling the bread dough. While working on the Burger recipe for In Search of Perfection 2, I found that a little water on the bench helps shaping the dough as it gets a bit of traction with the surface of the table or board.

• Baking is a science – each ingredient has a particular reason for being part of the recipe – more than just flavour. It is important to accurately measure the quantities of each of the ingredients.

• When using freeze-dried yeast, adding lukewarm water to a bowl and the yeast with a little sugar will help kick start the fermentation process.

• When mixing the ingredients, it is important not to add the salt and the yeast together. Salt can stop the yeast from fermenting. Salt and yeast can be added at different steps when making the dough.

 

Disclosure: I have been sent the Custom Loaf Pro by Sage Appliances for the purpose of this blog post. I get to keep the bread maker, but rest assured all views expressed are my own.

This blog post contains an affiliate link to Froothie blenders as I am an ambassador for them.

I’m linking this recipe post up to the following linkies….

No Croutons Required hosted this month by Lisa’s Kitchen and supported by Tinned Tomatoes

Meat Free Mondays hosted by Tinned Tomatoes

Cook Once, Eat Twice over on Searching For Spice

Credit Crunch Munch hosted this month by Utterly Scrummy and alternately by Fab Food 4 All and Fuss Free Flavours