Recently, I’ve become a bread maniac. I’ve always wanted to make my own bread, but the recipes and all the rules overwhelmed me. And the idea of preparing the sourdough by myself, from scratch, seemed like a total magic. Ok, maybe mixing flour with water is an easy part, but what about the rest: taking care, feeding, keeping this creature fresh and alive? So, so difficult. I wanted to be well prepared for this, so I bought a book, the bread bible by Hamelman. It was a huge mistake, the book was too complex, to difficult for such a beginner. It held me from making bread for years. But then I found this perfect and beautiful book by Polish blogger Eliza Mórawska “On bread”. And I got my courage back. I took it slowly.First the introduction, I focused on basics. Then I started to analyze the recipes, makes notes. I bought flour and some props. I even managed to make and keep the sourdough alive.
Now, I bake with sourdough or yeast, or both. I love the breads from cast iron pots. The shape is prefect. And I want to discover more and more about the bread.
So if you have doubts like I did, I encourage you to take some time to learn some basics. And really if you plan the whole baking process in advance you will see, how little of time you will need to make delicious bread. Of course you should be prepared for some failures at the beginning.
But having such a good book as “On bread” will make it so much easy (unfortunately so far book is only in Polish). You can learn about basics and enjoy simple recipes, not for the breads only, but for bun and other cakes. Like my recently favorite savory yeast-cake with vegetables. I veganise recipe a little, add sun-dried tomatoes instead of fresh, some artichokes and olives. It’s truly comforting and delicious dish and I can guarantee that everyone who tries it will fall in love with this cake immediately.
Savory yeast-cake with vegetables
From the cookbook “On bread”
Ingredients:
for ceramic pot about 25 cm diameter or square one 25x35cm
Cake:
15g fresh yeasts
500g all purpose flour
250ml soy milk
3 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
Toppings:
200ml tomato puree or canned tomatoes
bunch of mixed fresh basil, thyme and
2 medium onion
5 tbsp olive oil
Darined form the oil:
7-10 sun-dried tomatoes
4-6 artichokes
7-8 large green olives
Instructions:
- Blend the tomato puree with fresh herbs. In a medium pot heat the olive oil. Add sliced onion. Braise on the low heat for about 20 minutes. Add tomato puree and leave it to cool.
- Mix yeasts with milk (lukewarm). Mix all the dough ingredients and knead the dough. It should be soft and smooth. You may need to add some water, I usually add about 1 tbsp.
- Put the dough into a bowl covered with olive oil. Leave it, covered for 40 minutes.
- Spread the dough into baking pan, spike it with a fork. Put the tomato puree and add the veggies. Bake in 200C for about 30 minutes.
