Bread and Butter.

I have become a bit obsessed with this season of Masterchef Australia. I've never really gotten into it before this year, but I am LOVING it in 2012! I especially enjoy the master class episodes, where expert chefs teach the contestants how to make one of their signature dishes, and THEN the recipes are posted on the Masterchef website. So when I watched Phillippa Grogan of Phillippa's bakery in Melbourne share her bread-baking expertise, then found the recipe for the amazing-looking fig and walnut loaf she made for the contestants, I became totally consumed by the idea of baking my own bread.

I re-watched Phillippa's segment online a couple more times to familiarise myself with the techniques and processes, convinced myself that it looked pretty easy, and then on Tuesday afternoon, a bit before 4pm, I began the bread baking process.

Phillippa used figs and walnuts in her bread. I don't care for walnuts and I don't adore figs, so I decided to use almonds and dried cranberries. I soaked the cranberries in warm water while I measured out the other ingredients - yeast, plain flour, wholemeal flour, salt and my almonds - then drained the cranberries, and decided to use the cranberry water in the bread.

I then combined the flour, salt and yeast in a big mixing bowl, poured the water in and mixed it together with my hands.

The next step was kneading. Phillippa had a very specific kneading method, stretching the dough out, rolling it up, turning it 90 degrees, and repeating 3-6 times. Once that's happened, you press the dough out into a rectangle, sprinkle the fruit and nuts onto the dough, roll it us and knead it again until the fruit and nuts are bursting out. 

Next: proving. This is where you leave the dough to rise. It needs to sit for an hour, but it needs to be 'knocked back' - ie, kneaded the same way as before - at 20 minute intervals during the hour. So the dough went under the Pyrex dome, and the timer went on for 20 minutes.

Once that hour was over, it was time for the final knead, and to shape the loaf. Using the same stretching, rolling and turning method, I kneaded and shaped my dough. This is how it looked:

Now that it had been kneaded and shaped, it had to prove for another hour. This time, the recipe recommended to make a little protected atmosphere inside a big plastic bag for the final prove, so I peeled a new garbage bag off the roll, slipped the bread board and dough inside and tucked the end under to seal the air inside, and set the timer for another hour.

This was the time to pre-heat the oven to 250 degrees. 250! I've never had to make the oven so hot for anything I've ever cooked! Anyhow, I was so impatient by this stage. I just wanted to cook and eat my bread!

FINALLY the hour was up, the timer went off and it was time to bake! I made some slits on the top of the dough before it went into the oven, which not only makes the bread look pretty, it helps steam to escape the baking bread. Here's how it looked just before it went in the oven:

I'd had a tray heating in the oven for the whole hour, so I slipped the loaf onto some baking paper, opened the oven door and practically threw the loaf onto the tray because it was so HOT! Phillippa's next trick came into play here - have a second tray under the oven rack the bread will cook on, and just as you put the bread into the oven, throw a small bowl of ice onto the lower tray. This helps give the bread a really crunchy crust. Once the bread and ice were in the oven, I turned the heat down to 200 degrees and set the timer for 25 minutes. Once THAT timer went off, I stuck the handle of a wooden spoon into the door of the oven to let some of the excess steam out for five more minutes.

At this point, I was pacing the kitchen, constantly checking the timer to see if it was nearly done! As the final minutes ticked down, my excitement grew! I'd made bread! I couldn't wait to taste it! And then ... IT WAS TIME TO TAKE IT OUT OF THE OVEN!!! 

I managed to restrain myself for a while to let it cool a bit before I took to it with a bread knife! But when that moment finally came, I was not disappointed.

It was delicious! I toasted a couple of slices this morning for breakfast - still amazing!

I'll make this recipe again for sure. It was easy enough, though a bit time consuming, but the end product is totally worth the time and effort. Next time I might leave out the nuts and just use two different fruits, maybe cranberries and apricots.

Next post I'll tell you all about something exciting happening for me soon.

Anna.