Domestic Bread Goddess

Well the title may be a bit of a fabrication because I'm certainly no domestic goddess, bread or otherwise.  The first day of the school holidays brought intermittent rain and sunshine and was one of those days where the weather couldn't make it's mind up.

That was fine by us as I usually try not to have any plans for the first day of the holidays.  The kids like to sleep in (Miss R mainly) and not have Mum prodding (figuratively) them to get ready for school.  I love the fact that I don't have to make lunches and then prod the kids to get them ready for school.

I did wake up wanting to make bread though.  I haven't made a loaf in AGES but decided that Saturday was the day for filling the house with that warm bakery smell.

Of course I cheated and used the bread maker for one of the loaves.  Just because I wanted bread didn't mean I wanted to all the hard kneading work!

One of my favourite loaves to make in the bread maker is a fruit loaf.  I used to make it about once a week then would slice it up before freezing.  It makes the best toast and is a really yummy quick breaky, especially when slathered in butter and honey.

The original recipe said to use about 1/2 cup of dried fruit but that makes the bread look like a fly has walked over it and left a couple of little black spots behind.  If I'm making fruit loaf then I want fruit!  I used about 2 cups of dried fruit in this loaf and it's pretty scrumptious.

I also went a bit posh and got the gourmet dried fruit with dried figs and things in it.  It's delicious and I won't be going back to ordinary old dried fruit in the future for this bread.

Sticking with the theme of wanting homemade bread without the hard work, I ended up making a loaf of No Knead Bread.  This stuff is amazing and takes a couple of minutes to put everything in a bowl then leave it overnight to let it do it's magic.

The next day you pop it in a pot in the oven and presto...fresh bread.

(I used the recipe from here).

I've used this recipe a few times before over the years and it's always been amazing and works out perfectly.  However there's a reason you see the bread in the above photo still in the dutch oven.

I got distracted (school holidays remember) and didn't flour it enough so it kind of stuck to the bottom of the pot.  After a bit of a marvel in engineering, I was able to remove most of it in tact with only about half of the bottom crust still stuck to the pot.  No matter, it still tasted awesome.

I've exhausted my cooking and baking mojo for now though and am off to start on the multitudes of washing and a little bit of a house tidy which all got very neglected over the weekend.

xx Susan