Guest Post #2: SAMANTHA'S CHEESE AND GARLIC TIN LOAF

I am currently in the process of moving into my new house, this leaves me without internet meaning that I've decided to ask some bloggers to help me out and take over for me while I'm gone. today's lovely guest post is by Samantha of Planet Bake Life who has a very delicious bread recipe for you, I am really happy to have her on my blog today as she's a lovely person and a great baker.

Hi there everyone!

So I’d like to first introduce myself by saying that I am Samantha from PlanetBakeLife. Phew, now that’s out of the way, let’s have a little chat. Make yourself at home people, put up your feet and get cosy because this blog post will make you feel all homely on the inside. Let’s be honest, when people think of home they tend to think of fresh bread, hot and steaming from the oven. There is nothing to beat that smell.

Today I am going to show you how to make that bread in your very own home.

Now before you start grumbling that bread is hard to make and takes forever, I’d like you to take a deep breath and calm down. There is nothing scary about making bread and this recipe can be made in the morning or the night before, left in the fridge and baked when you get home. It’s super simple and super tasty and goes with almost everything but perhaps not with pickled fish and chocolate frosting cos that combo sounds a bit gross.

What You’ll Need:

250ml Water

60g Fresh Yeast (20-30g Instant Yeast)

1 Egg

10g Sugar

20g Crushed Garlic

150g Grated Cheese

Strong White Bread Flour

10g Salt

What You Need to Do:

1// You need to activate your instant yeast according to the instructions on the packet (or just chuck in your fresh yeast).

2// Pop your activated yeast, water, egg, sugar, crushed garlic and grated cheese into a good size bowl.  Pop about a cup and a half of the strong white bread flour into the bowl. If you’re hand kneading then use a spatula to mix the dough together or use an electric stand mixer on low speed to combine the ingredients.

3// Slowly add more flour until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl. When this happens, you’ve got a good water to flour ratio.

4// If you’re using a stand mixer, this is the time you want to kick the speed up one or two notches for 5 minutes. If you’re hand kneading then turn your dough onto a floured surface and begin to knead for 15-20 minutes. If the dough gets sticky again, slowly a bit of flour but don’t go over board otherwise you’ll get a hard loaf.

5// Pop your dough back into the bowl, cover with cling film and put in a draft free, warm area to rise for an hour or until doubled. I like to use the microwave (not turned on obviously) because it’s insulated.

6// When your bread has risen, turn it out onto a floured surface and then weigh out your loaves. You should get two decent size loaves from this size dough mixture. I oil my bread tins with olive oil before popping in my dough so it doesn’t stick.

7// Pop the bread tins somewhere warm to rise again for another 30 minutes or doubled in size.

8// Preheat your oven to around 190°C and pop your bread in for 30 minutes. When you take the bread out of the tins, tap the bottom and if it sounds hollow, you’re good, if not then pop them back in for another 5 minutes.

Now if this cheesy, garlicy bread doesn’t get your mouth watering half way through then you need to check your nostrils because this bread is fantastic in every way. I urge you to make at least two batches of this because the neighbours will pop by unexpectedly and demand a slice of whatever they can smell. Yeah. It’s that good.

You can also add some seeds to the top if you’d like.

Crack an egg into a bowl, add a few drops of water and whisk together. Then use the egg wash to brush over the top of the loaves and sprinkle with your topping of choice. I like to add sesame seeds for the crunch and subtle flavour, but the bread is amazing just on it’s own too.

Enjoy!

Samantha

thank you very much for your post Samantha, I hope you all enjoyed this post, make sure to check out Samantha's blog over at PlanetBakeLife, you can also find her on twitter here.