Seeded Loaf - Bread Challenge No. 10

 Happy Easter!
Yes the day finally crept up on us and, after losing an hours slept last night due to the clocks moving forward an hour, it was a very tired me in The Old Red Lion kitchen today cooking roast dinners. 
I didnt receive any Easter eggs today unfortuntely but I did get to open my Secret Easter Bunny gift that I received in the post yesterday as part of an online craft forum swap that I entered. My gift was made by someone that I have actually been in awe of for the past couple of years and her gift to me was these seriously cute bunnies that she made herself. Ros has a fantastic blog which is full of tutorials, her makes and a little bit of gossip!

Back to bread making!! This week we have started to make plans for a new menu for the summer months. One idea I had was mushroom pate as a starter. In the week I made a sample but, although it tasted lovely it needed to be eaten with something textured. We had some slightly stale, seeded loaf from the shop so we used that to experiment on taste and it really worked well together, so yesterday I attempted my own seeded loaf.

It came out BEAUTIFUL!! You must try this one it's a lovely taste and today, a day later, still was very soft and fresh tasting.

Here's the recipe.

Ingredients:

375g Strong White Bread Flour

125g Strong Brown Bread Flour

1 1/2 Tsp Salt

1 Tbsp Light Brown Sugar

1 Tsp Fast Action Dried Yeast

1 1/2 Tbsp Sunflour Oil

2 Tsp Lemon Juice

300ml Lukewarm Water

1 Tsp Poppy Seeds

1 Tsp Sesame Seeds

For The Topping

1 Egg White

1 Tbsp Water

1 Tbsp Pumpkin and Sunflower Seeds Mixed

Method:

Put the flours,sugar,salt, yeast and seeds into a bowl.Add the oil,lemon juice and water and mix together to form a dough. Turn out onto a lightly floured board and knead for 10minutes or until the dough is soft and pliable. Return to your bowl, cover and leave to rise in a warm place for about an hour..

When risen, punch down the dough to release the gas and knead for a couple more minutes and press into a large loaf tin and leave to rise again.When risen, mix the egg white and water and brush the top of the dough with it then gently press in the pumpkin and sunflower seeds. Bake in the oven about 20-25 minutes at 200C until golden brown.

Homemade seeded Loaf

Doesn't this look good!

Homemade Seeded Loaf

BANANA LEMON TART

SUNDAY ROAST is getting popular here at Skylark Farm and i like to keep as fresh with ideas for desserts as i can.
Having been given some soft lemons from the farmshop at the weekend i googled recipes with lemon in and came up with BANANA LEMON TART.

First thing needed is sweet shortcrust pastry.
*250g Plain Flour
*50g Icing Sugar
*125g Butter
*1 Large Free Range Egg (beaten)
*Splash Milk

Sieve the flour and sugar.
Rub in the butter.
Add the egg and milk to form a dough.
Wrap in clingfilm and rest for 1 hour in the fridge.
The lemon flavouring in the tart comes in the form of lemon curd so whilst the sweet pastry was chilling i popped over to one of my favourite blogs RosMadeMe where i knew Ros had a recipe for making lemon curd. You can find that recipe here
SO, having made my lemon curd i began on the tart.

First roll out the pastry dough and lay into a 9ins flan dish. Prick the bottom of the tart case. Bake blind on 160C (Fan Oven)/325F/Gas Mark 3 for 10 minutes, then remove the paper and beans. Bake for a further 5 minutes. Remove from the oven.

Spread 4Tbsps Strawberry Jam over the base of the pastry case.

Slice 3 Ripe Bananas and arrange evenly on the top.

Take your Lemon Curd from the chiller and measure out 5Tbsps.

Whisk in 2 beaten Free Range Eggs and 250g Creme Fraiche or Fromage Frais (entirely your preference).

Pour over the bananas.

Pop it back in the oven for about 30 minutes or until the filling is set and slightly browned.

Banana Lemon Tart

Leave to cool to room temperature before serving.

Once again i'm entering into Handmade Monday to see what the crafting community have been up to this week.