Category: Bread
Salted Caramel Peanut Bread (Vegan)

Salted Caramel Peanut Bread (Vegan)

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Not gonna lie, this week has been tough. I’m used to over committing myself – it’s kinda become a defining feature of my personality – but now I’m being chased up a hill on roller-skates by several angry monsters called degree, sleep and mental-well-being. The only thing keeping me vaguely grounded are the amazing friends I have who are there to scrape me up off the floor, turn me around and put me back the in game (you know who you are and I’m so so grateful!).

If things stopped for a second or two I know I’d want to be back in the kitchen, letting out all my woes on some unfortunate bread dough like this and then devouring it as soon as it’d cooled down enough for me to eat it. I made this back at the start of Veganuary and thus it can be 100% vegan! So whether you’re a hardcore meat-eater or a strong and proud vegan, as long as you’re not allergic to nuts this is the bread for you!

So back unto the breach. Back into the storm. See you on the other side!

Recipe

Makes 1 Large loaf

Time: 2 hours, plus proving and baking time

Ingredients

  • 400g Strong white bread flour
  • 1 ½ tsp Salt
  • 40g Caster sugar
  • 45g Butter (or dairy-free spread)
  • 10g Fast action dried yeast
  • 130ml Milk (or dairy-free alternative)

For the caramel peanut filling

  • 300g Granulated sugar
  • 4 tbsp Water
  • 240g Dairy-free spread
  • 5g Salt
  • 200g Dairy-free cream (e.g coconut or soya cream)
  • 200g Peanuts (unsalted if adding the 5g salt in as above)

Method

  1. First make the bread dough. Put the flour, salt, sugar, butter, yeast, milk and 120ml water into a large bowl and mix together to form a lumpy dough.
  2. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and stretchy (about 10 minutes).
  3. Put the dough into a clean bowl and cover with cling film. Then set to one side to rise until doubled in size (about an hour).
  4. Now make the salted caramel filling. Put the sugar and water into a large pan and cook on a low heat until the mixture starts to turn a golden amber colour. Do not mix at this stage or the caramel will crystallise.
  5. Add the dairy-free spread (or butter) to the mixture (be careful as it will splatter!) and mix it in with a wooden spoon.
  6. Add the salt to the mixture and then cook for another 2 minutes on a low heat.
  7. Take the pan off the heat and add the cream. Mix until well combined, then mix in the peanuts and set aside to cool.
  8. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for about 10 seconds to knock the air out. Then shape the dough into a rectangle and roll it out to a rectangle that’s 25 x 33 cm.
  9. Spread the cooled salted peanut mixture over the dough and then roll it up like a swiss roll from long edge to long edge.
  10. Cut the dough in half length ways so you have two long strips. Then twist the strips over each other, trying to keep the open half facing the top.
  11. Wrap the dough into a ring, pressing the ends of the dough together and then place onto a lined baking tray, cover loosely with clingfilm and leave to prove for another hour until doubled in size.
  12. Pre-heat the oven to 200˚C. Bake the dough for 25-30 minutes until risen and golden brown.
  13. Transfer the loaf to a wire rack to cool and then serve!

Thanks for reading!

Emma x
Cherry and Marzipan Flower Bread

Cherry and Marzipan Flower Bread

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It’s the last post of the year and so I decided to go for this fun-to-make flower bread thing to kick off 2019! Bread’s one of those massively underrated bakes that very few people make themselves, even though its pretty easy and fun to do. By making your own you can also explore breads with really interesting flavours and fillings so you can branch out from the classic plain white loaf and into the colourful world of flavoured bread. Yes it does take some time to make, but it’s more just waiting for it to rise than actually working on it constantly. So if you’re yet to figure out your new years resolutions maybe you could set out to learn how to make bread? I promise you won’t regret it!

Speaking of new years resolutions…

I’ve always been someone who’s loved fresh starts, not necessarily because I screw up so badly I need them all the time, but just because for some reason they make it easier to start something with ommph. For example I can never start a diet mid-week or start going to bed earlier on a random day. So when new year comes around it’s the perfect opportunity for me to look at everything I’m doing wrong in my life and try to sort it out a bit. Of course it never works and I hit December realising how over-optimistic I was last year about what I could achieve, but it never stops me from making them.

Recently I’ve been really getting into Ted talks and on one of them a guy listed some top tips for new years resolutions in order to optimise life enjoyment and productivity. Sounds even more optimistic than the usual gumph we put on our lists but I thought this year I’d try it and see at the end of the year if it did make things more interesting. For example he recommended that we don’t start our new years with ‘I will not do this’ or the aim to do something we’re not actually interested in doing. Yeah running everyday would be great, but if you hate running it’s not the best start to 2019.  Instead we should aim to go places we want to go, learn skills we want to learn, and spend more time with the people we want to spend time with. So if I can pass on any advice for the new year it would be to a) make one of these (it really does taste super good!) and b) start the new year with the aim of doing some fun things that you want to do!

Recipe

Serves 8

Time: 2 hours, plus proving and baking time

Ingredients

  • 150g Frozen cherries (or mixed fruit)
  • 3 tbsp Cherry jam (or mixed fruit)
  • 3 tbsp Chambord (or other fruity liqueur like crème de cassis or kirsch)
  • 200g Marzipan
  • 1 Egg, beaten
  • 2 tbsp Demerara sugar

For the dough

  • 500g Strong white bread flour
  • 10g Salt
  • 30g Caster sugar
  • 14g Fast action dried yeast
  • 40g Butter
  • 2 Large eggs
  • 50ml Milk
  • Olive oil for greasing

Method

  1. Begin by making the dough. Put the flour, salt, sugar and yeast into a bowl and mix everything together. Make sure you don’t put the salt directly on top of the yeast or you could end up deactivating the yeast
  2. Add the butter, eggs, milk and 100ml water to the mixture. Stir until combined, adding a little more water if needed to bring the dough together.
  3. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic (about 10 minutes).
  4. Form the dough into a ball and then put it into a large clean bowl, greased slightly with clingfilm. Cover with clingfilm and then set aside to prove for around an hour, until doubled in size.
  5. Now prepare the filling. Put the cherries into a pan with the chambord (or tipple of choice) and the cherry jam and then bring to a gentle simmer. Leave for 5 minutes, then puree with a hand blender and take off the heat. Whilst the puree is cooling cut the marzipan into 36 thin slices.
  6. Butter a 24cm pie dish with slopping sides, or a cake tin if you don’t have one.
  7. Turn the dough out onto a worktop and knead for 10-15 seconds to knock the air out. Then split the dough into 4.
  8. Place one of your dough pieces on a lightly floured surface and then cover the other pieces you’re not using with cling film. Roll the dough out to a disc about 4mm thick. Then cut out 7cm rounds from the dough. Keep the off cuts in case you need to re-roll and then repeat with the other portions of dough. You should have around 30-36 circles.
  9. Place one piece of marzipan and a little spoonful of the cherry mixture in the centre of each dough circle.
  10. Fold each circle in half, and then bring the two points of the semi-circle together to make a petal shape.
  11. Arrange the dough pieces around the edge of the tin in a circle, and then make more circles with the dough petals working into the centre. Cover loosely with clingfilm and leave to rise for 1 hour.
  12. Pre-heat the oven to 180˚C. Brush the top of the bread with a little beaten egg and scatter with the demerara sugar. Bake for 35-40 minutes until golden brown and baked all the way through. Serve!

Thanks for reading!

Emma x
Mince Pie Bread Snowflake

Mince Pie Bread Snowflake

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As you can see from the photo below, baking in a little student kitchen is more problematic than my little naive brain could have ever thought of. Before I got to uni I went on a full out shop, buying everything (within reason) I thought I would need to be ready to cook at uni. Oh boy was I wrong. Lacking in scales, space, ingredients and an oven big enough to actually fit the loaf of bread I made it was a wonder it came out looking like this and not a blob on a plate. I even resorted to using a golden syrup bottle to roll out my dough before realising I had a rolling pin after all (fyi, a bottle that has a curvy shape may be pretty but does not function as an effective rolling pin!).

Anyway, a bit of guessing with the measurements, some careful squishing onto the baking tray and 4 hours of time I probably should have spent studying later, this beauty appeared from the oven… and was then eaten in about 5 minutes. The two things I love most about baking is sharing the outcomes with others and, of course, the hands on process of making whatever it is. In particular there’s something very therapeutic about making bread and it’s a great way to calm yourself and get out your anger at the same time. I actually made this in the midst of the ‘I have no idea what the hell I’m doing, should I switch to an art degree or will I regret that in three years when I’m living in a cardboard box?!?’ crossroad in my life, and just getting the head space to actually think by doing something hands on was just what I needed at the time. I’m also 98% sure that mincemeat is a mood booster. Shove a jar of that under my nose and you’ll fool me into thinking it’s Christmas so I’ll perk up a lot!

One of the other fun things about making bread is the cool shapes you can twist the dough into! I first came across this way of shaping a loaf whilst watching Bake Off a few years ago. It’s so simple to do and yet messes with everyone’s head so they go ‘ooo, how’d you do that?’. It also makes the loaf really easy to share as each person can  rip off one of the snowflake branches!

Recipe

Serves about 8 hungry students

Time: 1 hour (plus proving and baking time)

Ingredients

For the Dough                   

  • 500g Strong white bread flour
  • 10g Salt
  • 25g Caster sugar
  • 10g Fast action dried yeast
  • 30g Butter
  • 2 Large eggs
  • 50ml Milk
  • Olive oil for greasing

For the Filling/Topping 

  • 350g Mince meat
  • 1 Egg to glaze
  • 150g Icing sugar

Method

  1. Begin by making the dough. Put the flour, salt, sugar and yeast into a bowl and mix everything together. Make sure you don’t put the salt directly on top of the yeast or you could end up deactivating the yeast.
  2. Add the butter, eggs, milk and 100ml water to the mixture. Stir until combined, adding a little more water if needed to bring the dough together.
  3. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic (about 10 minutes).
  4. Form the dough into a bowl and then put it into a large clean bowl. Cover with clingfilm and then set aside to prove for around an hour, until doubled in size.
  5. Turn the dough out onto a worktop and knead for 10-15 seconds to knock the air out. Then cut the dough in two, wrap one of the halves in clingfilm and set aside for later.
  6. Lightly flour a work top and roll the first half of the dough out into a circle, about 30cm in diameter. The dough will resist being stretched but keep going and you’ll get there. Transfer this sheet of dough to a lined baking tray.
  7. Spread the mincemeat over the circle of dough, leaving a 1 cm boarder around the edge.
  8. Roll out the remaining dough into another 30cm circle. Brush the edge of the base with a little water and then lift the top sheet of dough on to the base.
  9. Take a knife and carefully trim the circle so it’s neat (using a large bowl or plate as a guide can help). Then cut 16, 10cm long, equally spaced slices into the centre of the bread, but not cutting all the way into the middle. Using a 10cm wide template in the middle so you know where to cut to can help.
  10. Twist each strip over twice, the first one to the right, the second one to the left and so on, until you have 16 alternating twisted strips.
  11. Take two strips and gently squeeze together the tops of the strips to join them together. Repeat with the rest of your strips so you have 8 snowflake branches.
  12. Wrap the loaf loosely in cling film and then leave to prove for about 30 minutes.
  13. Pre-heat the oven to 180˚C. Break an egg for glazing in a small bowl and beat with a fork to break it up.
  14. Brush the egg over the risen loaf to glaze and then bake for 20-25 minutes in the oven until golden-brown and risen. Set aside to cool.
  15. Mix together the icing sugar and just enough water to make a pourable but not runny icing. Transfer the icing to a piping bag with a small round nozzle and then pipe decoration over the cooled loaf. Serve!

Thanks for reading!

Emma x
Maneesh Bread with Hummus and Lamb

Maneesh Bread with Hummus and Lamb

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Ok so, for those of you who were frequent Cocoa and Thyme visitors thank you for following me over to this new site and for those of you who are new, hello and welcome! As you’ve probably worked out by now I’ve changed the name and direction of m’ blog to be more centred around mental health awareness and support through food, (if you’re lost see my previous blog post or my ‘about’ page for more info). I’m still going to be the one behind each post so the style and general inspiration behind each recipe will be staying pretty much the same, but I will now be opening up more about my own mental health and will be aiming what I’m cooking more towards those who need quick, easy, comforting and/or nutritious food on a regular basis (whether that’s because of a mental health issue or just a general need). For now it’s worth saying that I normally prep my recipes a month in advance anyway, and most of what’ll be coming out over the next month will be stuff I made ages ago, so if it looks like it’s taking me a while to get into the swing of ‘The Mindfulness Kitchen’ that’s why.

So enough with the slightly angst explaining of what the hell I’m doing, onto the food! During my amazing time at Greenbelt we worked 4 hours shifts, often that went over a lunchtime or the time in the evening when you start to get peckish (some people call it dinner?). Luckily we were positioned right next to an little food truck that sold insanely good Middle Eastern dishes, so it was super easy to go and get some really good food in the calmer moments of a shift! My favourite of these was their maneesh, a soft flatbread topped with za’atar spice blend, which they stuffed with lamb and hummus. It was so good that as soon as I got home I just had to make my own, and this was the result!

This particular maneesh bread isn’t really a flatbread, more of a  flat soft bread, but it still works well as dipping device. If you want more a pita type thing you could just roll your dough thinner but personally I wouldn’t for two reasons – 1. The big chunks of bread mean that this can double as a hearty lunch-type bread that’ll actually fill you up, and 2. the dough is really stubborn when it comes to rolling and springs back a lot, so you’ll be there ages if you try to get the dough thin enough to be a proper flatbread. Whatever you go for though, this is an amazing sharing bread that’s especially good served with oil, hummus, balsamic and minced lamb, so its perfect for parties or meze/tapas style dinners.

Recipe

Serves 4

Time: 40 minutes, plus proving and baking time

Ingredients

  • 360g Strong white bread flour
  • 8g Salt
  • 15g Caster sugar
  • 7g Fast action dried yeast
  • 1 tbsp Olive oil, plus extra for greasing
  • 250ml Water
  • 2 tbsp Zaatar spice blend

To Serve (optional)

  •  4 tbsp Olive oil
  • 400g Minced lamb
  • A little Balsamic vinegar
  • 4 tbsp Hummus

Method

  1. Begin by making the bread. Put the flour, salt, yeast, and sugar into a bowl and mix together. Add the oil and ½ the water and then mix together until combined. Slowly add the remaining water, mixing constantly, until a soft dough forms.
  2. Tip the dough out onto a lightly oiled worktop and knead until smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes should do it. Kneading is the process by which you stretch the dough, so as long as you’re stretching the dough as much as possible you’re doing it right, but if you want some more technique this is how I do it. With your left hand hold the end of the dough closest to you, then with the heel of your right hand push the dough away from you as far as you can. Roll the dough back towards you with your right hand, turn the dough 90˚and repeat.
  3. When the dough is sufficiently kneaded (ie is smooth and lovely) form the dough into a ball, tip it into a lightly oiled bowl and cover with clingfilm. Leave for an hour or two until doubled in size.
  4. When risen knead the dough a little on a worktop to knock the air out. Split the dough into two, roll each portion out into a circle about 1 cm thick, then place on a lined baking tray.
  5. Mix the zaatar with a little olive oil to make a paste. Spread this paste over the bread circles and leave for another 15-30 minutes to rise slightly.
  6. Pre-heat the oven to 180˚C. Bake the breads in the oven for 15-20 minutes until golden brown and slightly risen.
  7. Meanwhile prep the lamb. Put 1 tbsp of the oil into a pan and heat gently. Add the minced lamb and then fry until browned all over but not dry. Season with a little salt and pepper and then serve with the rest of the oil, the bread, balsamic, and hummus!

Thanks for reading!

Emma x
Afternoon Tea Sandwiches

Afternoon Tea Sandwiches

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Every afternoon tea starts with a delicious selection of finger sandwiches. For this spread I went for cheese and ham on brown bread and then cucumber and smoked salmon on white bread. These are personal faves  of mine, but feel free to get experimental! So yes I am going to write a recipe for sandwiches, here we go…

Recipe

Makes 6 of each type of sandwich

Time: 10 minutes

Ingredients

  • 6 tsp Unsalted butter
  • 6 slices Brown bread
  • 6 slices White bread
  • 2 tsp cream cheese
  • A few pieces of Smoked salmon
  • ¼ cucumber
  • 3 Slices of Honey smoked ham
  • 3 Slices of Cheddar cheese

Method

  1. Begin by buttering (the proper technical term) the brown bread slices and half the white bread. Then spread the cream cheese over the remaining White bread slices.
  2. To make the smoked salmon sandwiches lay the smoked salmon in  a layer over half the cream cheese covered bread. Then sandwich these sandwich halves with the rest of the cream cheese covered slices.
  3. Now make the cucumber sandwiches. Thinly slice the cucumber and then lay the slices over 1/2 of the white bread slices.  You might need to cut some of the cucumber discs in half so all the bread is covered. Top with the other slices of white bread and leave to one side.
  4. To make the remaining sandwiches lay the ham over 3 buttered brown bread slices and the cheese slices over the another. Then top with the remaining slices of brown bread, butter side down.
  5. Take a sharp knife and cut the crusts off all the sandwiches (keep these in an air tight box as they make great snacks!) and then cut each sandwich in half vertically to make two finger sandwiches. (Depending on the size of bread you’re using you might need to cut the sandwiches into three or something, but just use your judgement). Serve!

Thanks for reading! Next afternoon tea recipe coming out tomorrow!

Emma x