Sunday later on

Making bread is a great way of getting rid of excess energy and a great (legal) substitute for bashing the living daylights out of someone, I've decided. Earlier on I spent a most enjoyable ten minutes making bread dough the good, old-fashioned way, discovering that bread kneading is like swimming or riding a bike - you never really forget how to do it. I could have made the dough in the bread machine, but decided I rather fancied doing it by hand. A most satisfying experience it was too! I wonder if WLR gives the calories burnt. After all, done properly it's great exercise!

(Joy goes over to look)

Nope, it doesn't! What a shame. ;0)

Anyway - the bread has just come out of the oven and oh, my goodness, it looks, smells and tastes absolutely gorgeous. One to remember, without any shadow of doubt. The house smells divine too - better than any spray one could buy. The hardest bit was actually getting it off the baking tray in one piece and next time I think it would be sensible to make two smaller loaves. You can find the recipe here with a link to the dough itself half way through the recipe.

I did it a bit different, of course. No bacon because I want DD to have some, and the herb was sage, roughly chopped and mixed with the onion and sprigs of rosemary wiped over with oil and laid across the top, as rosemary can be vicious in the mouth. I softened the onion for ages in a mixture of butter and olive oil and stirred in the shredded sage at the end. The cheese was kept separate, it was grated and a little got kneaded into the dough as well. Oh, and I sprinkled over a little Maldon sea salt.

A few little nodules fell off so, of course, I had to try them. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm . . .

The photos are firstly of the dough and then of the finished loaf.

I must be strong, I must be strong, I must be . . .