April | 2010 | Zeb Bakes

‘Barleycorn bread’

I made a loaf yesterday using Doves barleycorn flour which I had bought out of curiosity. I would quite like to buy all the bread mixes available on the shelves of my local supermarket and try them just to see what they are like, but I resist usually.

I didn’t use the recipe on the back of the packet but made the loaf using the following:

250g mature white starter
1/4 tsp fresh yeast
500 g barleycorn flour
1 tsp spray malt
275 grams water
1 and a half tsp salt
20 grams melted butter

The finished loaf tasted slightly malty and was quite soft, and for my taste a bit boring and bland, I think I will add some whey or yoghurt to it when I use up the other half of the bag and maybe make rolls with it. I don’t think I would buy it again as I prefer to mix my own flours and seeds. I also prefer it when the grains and seeds have been soaked before mixing into the dough. Here as the flakes and linseed are already in the flour you don’t have the opportunity to do that and when you slice the bread you can see the little dry bits of cut grain or flakes or whatever it is.
I’ve just been back to read the list of ingredients.

No idea what the last line means. Does it mean there is Ascorbic Acid (Vit C) plus something else? The mouth feel is definitely soft, like it has a fair bit of malt flour in it. Reminds me of a shop loaf somehow even with a white leaven starter. Not a bad shop loaf, but still a shop loaf.

Doves Barleycorn Flour

Wheat Flour*, Barley Flakes* (14%), Barley Flour*, Linseeds* (4%), Malt Flour*, Ascorbic Acid + (* Certified Organic, + Permitted Flour Treatment)

Made up for it with a bubbly long retarded sourdough pizza light on the toppings and cheese which we were very pleased with!

Fresh artichoke, italian fennel salami, jalapenos, mushrooms and a little buffalo mozarella – Pizza light!

In case you are wondering what the pizza is sitting on – it’s a super peel!

I know you expect bread – but I am also a big fan of vegetables and beans and pulses

Warm butterbean gremolata

I think everyone has their favourite beans. What are yours?

I never ate any of these dried wonders until I left home. They weren’t in my family’s food vocabulary. Like a lot of the foods I am interested in, they require work to transform them into something that you really want to eat.

I don’t think they are as popular as the baked bean in the heart and tummy of the English so I am putting a word in for them, as do these guys:
This is just delicious….and at the moment I could eat it every day….
You will need

a bay leaf or two
300 grams dried butter beans
An onion halved
Two garlic cloves
A good handful of parsley or coriander
a lemon grated zest and juice
Two tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Soak 300 grams of butterbeans overnight in water with a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda, this helps to stop the skins falling off and tenderise the skins.
Make sure there is enough water to more than cover the beans as they swell up as they soak.
The following day drain and rinse the beans.
Place in a large pan with plenty of fresh water.
Add an onion chopped in half and a couple of cloves of garlic and a bay leaf.
Bring to the boil and boil at a rolling boil for about 10 minutes, then simmer uncovered for an hour and a half, or until the beans are tender.
Do not add salt before this as it will harden the skins.
Add salt to taste and simmer for another ten minutes.
Drain and discard the onion and garlic and bay leaf.
Zest a lemon, and squeeze the fruit.
Add the zest and about half a lemon’s worth of juice, again to taste, finely chopped parsley, or coriander if that is your preference.
Stir in a little freshly chopped garlic, salt and pepper, 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil.
Mix well and serve with other salads, as a vegetable side dish, on its own with a hunk of crusty homemade sourdough baguette!

The original recipe for this in this month’s Waitrose magazine by the way which is a really good one and well worth getting hold of a copy. Their website doesn’t do the magazine justice.