Bready, Steady, Go - July Round Up

I was delighted to host Bready, Steady, Go again as I love seeing all the delicious creations linked up.  We bake bread regularly and it's great to have some bread baking inspiration and new recipes to try.

Jen will be hosting next month so if you are baking bread, do link up and share your delicious bakes.

I recently blogged a handy step by step guide to baking bread over on BabyCentre UK, perfect for those who find bread baking a bit intimidating or for those having a go at baking bread for the first time.

Baking bread is a brilliant way to keep kids amused in the school holidays and there's a sense of satisfaction and pride eating bread you've baked yourself, it also usually tastes much better than store bought bread.  

On to the fabulous breads baked in July! 

Tales from the Kitchen Shed baked a delicious Garlic and Herb Twister Bread

Tales from the Kitchen Shed also baked Homemade Cheese and Garlic Bread Twists

We Don't Eat Anything With A Face created a delicious Tear and Share Spiral Pizza

Belleau Kitchen baked a Mallorcan Rustic Rye Bread

Onions and Paper created a Cheddar, Onion and Parsley Plait, perfect for a picnic

BakingQueen74 baked Slow Cooker Cinnamon and Raisin Bread

Only Crumbs Remain took on the challenge of a 5 Strand Cholla, with delicious results




 Caroline Makes cooked Pizza on the BBQ, what a brilliant idea




The Veg Space baked Cheddar and Chilli Sweet Potato Bread




Thanks to all those who joined in with Bready, Steady, Go!

Fougasse

Today was a rather damp, cold, and miserable day.  So much for lovely and sunny British Summer weather!  We were craving comfort food, mainly carbs and cheese, so I baked some Fougasse and we devoured them whilst still warm with a cheese, chive and bacon dip.  The rainy day seemed much more tolerable with a decadent indoor picnic.

Fougasse

350g strong white bread flour

7g instant yeast

7g salt

250ml luke warm water

Mix all the ingredients together in a large bowl until a smooth dough forms then turn out on to a work surface and knead until smooth and elastic, this took 10 minutes by hand.  Cover and prove until doubled in size, this took an hour and a half.  

Knock back the dough and divide into 4 portions.  Flatten each to about 1cm thick and cut down the middle then make 3 smaller slanting cuts each side, as shown below.  Spread out the dough on the trays so the cuts are fairly wide, you don't want the dough to rise and close up the cuts you have made.

Put the prepared dough onto lined oven trays and cover with greased clingfilm.  Leave to prove again for 45 minutes to an hour until doubled in size again.  Preheat your oven to 240C/220C Fan/Gas Mark 9 and bake the Fougasse for 20 - 25 minutes until golden. 

Really Quick and Easy Yoghurt Cake

My daughters baked this cake last weekend, it is so quick to make and a delicious afternoon tea treat.

Really Quick and Easy Yoghurt Cake

250ml yoghurt, I used vanilla flavour

125ml cup milk

125ml cooking oil (not olive)

2 large free range eggs

Grated zest of one lemon

300g self-raising flour

200g caster sugar

Preheat the oven to 180C/160C Fan.  Grease and line a 21cm round or square cake tin.

Mix the first five ingredients together in a bowl.  Sift the flour and sugar over the top.  Mix until just combined.  Don't beat or over mix the batter.  Bake for 35 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean of crumbs.

Homemade Fruited Teacakes

My 3 daughters love making, and eating, all sorts of different breads.  Toasted teacakes is one of their favourite after school snacks.  We baked some teacakes on the weekend, they taste so much better than shop bought ones and were devoured still warm from the oven.

These teacakes freeze well, I often bake a double batch and stash them in the freezer otherwise they would all get eaten straight away.  There's also only one proving time, just knead, shape, prove then bake.  The ingredients to make a batch of 10 large teacakes cost 78p, just under the cost of a 4 pack of teacakes from the supermarket.  That means you can make 2.5 times more teacakes if you make them yourself for the cost of buying them.   

Making your own breads, rolls and buns also means you can tailor them to your tastes.  Sometimes we add dried apple pieces as well as raisins/sultanas or some dried apricots.  Baking bread is also a great school holiday activity as it keeps children amused, can be fitted in around other activities, and they can devour the result.

Homemade Fruited Teacakes

700g strong white bread flour
50g white vegetable fat, I used Trex
50g caster sugar
1 tsp salt
1 sachet (7g) instant yeast
430ml lukewarm milk
125g dried fruit, we used sultanas

Line two baking trays with non-stick baking paper,  Put the flour into a large mixing bowl, or the bowl of a stand mixer.  Rub the vegetable fat into the flour.  Add the sugar, salt and stir through.  Add the yeast then make a well in the centre and add the warmed milk.  Mix until a sot dough forms.  Knead the dough on an unfloured work surface for 10 minutes or knead with a dough hook in your stand mixer for 5 - 7 minutes.  Work in the dried fruit, divide the dough into portions.

Shape each of the 10 dough portions into a round then flatten with your hand to about 1cm (1/2 inch) thick.  Put 5 dough portions on each baking tray, allowing room for spreading.  Cover with greased cling film and leave to prove until doubled in size.

Preheat your oven to 220C/200C Fan/Gas Mark 7.

Bake the teacakes for about 15 minutes, they should be golden on top and sound hollow when tapped on the bottom.  Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely or until they are cool enough to devour.

Cheese Baps

These baps are packed with cheese throughout and more cheese sprinkled on top.  I baked a batch of them on the weekend for packed lunches during the week.  I ended up having to make another batch as the first one was gobbled up for lunch that day whilst they were still warm.  We devoured them with a vegetable soup as it was a rainy day, even though it is summer here in the UK.

My 3 daughters enjoyed helping with the baking process, as usual, and especially liked shaping the buns and practising their dough rolling and shaping techniques.  Apologies for the quality of the photo, I managed to take a quick photo with my phone before the baps were devoured - no chance to get out the DSLR before my hungry family ate all the baps.

Cheese Baps

450g strong white bread flour

50g unsalted butter

2 tsp sugar

1 tsp salt

1 sachet (7g) instant yeast

2 free range eggs, beaten ( I used medium eggs)

180ml lukewarm milk

200g grated mature cheddar cheese

additional grated cheese to sprinkle on top

Put the flour into a large bowl, or the bowl of a stand mixer, and rub in the butter. Stir through the sugar, salt and yeast. Make a well in the centre and add the eggs and milk. Mix until a soft dough forms.

Knead the dough using a stand mixer or by hand until smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes. Put the dough into a lightly greased bowl, cover with cling film or a shower cap and leave to prove until doubled in size.

Line a couple of oven trays with non stick baking paper. Knock the dough back and divide into 10 equal pieces. Knead a little cheese and bacon into each portion of dough. Form into a round then squish with the heel of your hand so each bap is about 4 inches, 10cm across. Brush the tops of the buns with milk then sprinkle some grated cheese on top, then put on to prepared oven trays. Leave space between the baps on the oven trays to allow room for them to double in size. Cover then leave to prove until doubled in size.

Preheat your oven to 200C/180C Fan/Gas Mark 6. Bake the baps for 15 minutes until golden. Remove from the oven and transfer to a wire rack. Cover with a clean tea towel until cool which will ensure a soft crust.

Extra Veg July Linky

Eat an extra portion of vegetables with each meal, when you can.

I’ve linked up with Helen at Fuss Free Flavours for a blog event – Extra Veg – to encourage everyone to eat more vegetables and live healthier.

Taking up the Extra Veg challenge means that you get all the extra vitamins and nutrients from extra helpings of vegetables and the veggies help fill you up so you eat less helpings of unhealthy foods.

To participate each month all you need to do is:

Simply blog about any recipe or idea where you eat an extra portion of vegetables.

There are a few rules:

Please link to the current host (me), and also to Helen

Tweet using #ExtraVeg and mention @utterlyscrummy and @fussfreeflavours along with the twitter handle of the host for that month

Closing date of the challenge is 28th of the month

By entering you are agreeing to let us use an image from your entry on this site, and to pin to Pinterest

Please be respectful of other people’s copyright

But feel free to send your recipe to as many other blog events as you like!

Breadsticks and the Bready Steady Go! July Linky

I'm delighted to be hosting Bready, Steady, Go again this month.  My co-creator Jen hosted last month and there were some delicious entries.  It's great to see so many people enjoying the process of baking their own bread.  It tastes so much better than a shop bought loaf and you can vary the recipe to suit your own preferences.  All 3 of my girls know how to bake a basic loaf, and a couple of fancier ones, and it is such a useful skill for them to have mastered.

I baked these breadsticks on a Sunday afternoon, thinking they could be used for packed lunches or snacks during the week.  How wrong I was! They were devoured in less than 15 minutes.  I managed to keep my family from eating them long enough to take photos but once I had a decent shot or two they were devouring them at great speed.

I used some brown bread flour to add a little more flavour and texture to the breadsticks but you can use just white bread flour if you prefer, just decrease the water to 300ml.  I served the sweet breadsticks with some Berry Yoghurt Dip.

Breadsticks

350g strong white bread flour 

150g strong brown bread flour

7g sachet instant yeast

1 Tblsp sugar 

2 tsp salt

320ml lukewarm water

50ml oil

Mix the flour, yeast, sugar and salt in a big bowl. Mix the water and oil together then add to the dry ingredients and until a soft dough forms. Turn out onto a lightly floured and knead for 10 minutes (or use the dough hook attachment on your mixer).

Lightly grease the mixing bowl with some oil. Put the dough into the bowl and cover with clingfilm. Leave until doubled in size. Knock back the dough by gently kneading for a minute or two. Leave the dough to rise again if you haven't time to shape and bake it. I did this as I was stuck under a sleeping baby so one of my older children knocked the dough back and covered the bowl again so the dough could rise a second time.

Divide the dough into quarters. Pinch off small amounts of dough and roll them into sticks. I was able to get approximately 60 breadsticks from the dough. Put the shaped breadsticks onto lined oven trays and leave to prove for 15 minutes before baking.

Should you wish to flavour the breadsticks, either knead herbs or additions in before shaping or brush the breadsticks with melted butter and sprinkle over toppings. I sprinkled cinnamon sugar over half of the breadsticks then the other half were a mixture of freshly ground pepper and grated Parmesan. 

Preheat your oven to 180C/160C Fan/Gas Mark 4. Bake the breadsticks for 12-18 minutes, until golden and crisp. Cool on wire racks.

Challenge Guidelines

Bready Steady Go! will run from 1st until the 28th of each month and then a round up will be posted by the hosting blog at the end of the month.

You can link up any bread recipe, sometimes we may also run themed challenges, and feel free to join in with other challenges if your post also meets their guidelines. If you really love baking bread then you can add multiple entries up to a maximum of 3 per blog each month.

Please link back to Jen’s Food and Utterly Scrummy Food For Families and include the badge to help spread the word.

We’d prefer to see entries from new blog posts where possible but you can also add old posts if you add the badge and link back to our blogs as well.

You can tweet your entries to @JensFood and @UtterlyScrummy using the hashtag #breadysteadygo and we will retweet all that we see.

All entries will also pinned to our new Pinterest board as they come in.

If you make a recipe from a book/magazine/website etc please respect copyright and do not reproduce the recipe verbatim. Instead of copying out the recipe from the book, describe it in your own words and if it’s from an online source please link to the original content rather than copying full recipe.

So what are you waiting for?! Bready, Steady, Go bake some bread!

An InLinkz Link-up