Bread, olives and tomatoes… the dream team?

So. I’m impressed by the bread I’ve made so far. It’s not as light and airy as shop-bought but it’s tastier and more satisfying which is much better. The next step was to add some excitement… and what could be better than black olives, sun-dried tomatoes and basil? I chopped up these 3 ingredients and put them in a bowl. Meanwhile, the Kenwood Chef was kneading the dough. After the first knead, I let the bread rise on the radiator for an hour and then I added the ingredients to the dough and kneaded it again. I was worried at first. The dough became very loose and oily (from the sun-dried tomatoes) and I was concerned that it wasn’t going to cook somewhere.

But I rested it again for a half hour and it re-rose perfectly. 25 minutes in a 200C oven and they came out like this:

With just a bit of butter, me and my wife polished off one loaf in about an hour… Really more-ish!

Bread. The wonder food.

Me and my wife treated ourselves to a Kenwood Chef for Christmas and I’ve been trying out making some bread in it. Inspired by my neighbour (his gorgeous bread is here) I set to making my own loaves of perfection.

Well, they weren’t perfect, but that’s the point! They were tasty and no comparison to the stodge that sits for weeks at a time in supermarkets. I used the basic white bread recipe that came with the Kenwood and got 2 small loaves.

My first attempt:

Incidentally, the recipe from the Kenwood Chef book was something like:

450G flour (bread, white, strong)
15g of fresh yeast.
300 Lukewarm watter
7 grams of salt.