Are Nuts a Waste of Time?

[Churchill]

If you like cheese & jalapeno, try making garlic bread with lumps of real garlic in - very pronounced taste and keeps the Romanians away.

Garlic Bread... Garlic Bread? It's the future!!!

[hyperD]

Do all sorts, many unrepeatable, even if I tried. The latest one had some fruit in rum stuff left from Xmas and the bread came out purple. Tastes really good.

Ah, the old Star Trek props bread! LOL!

[Lucifer Box]

hyperD, sounds like you had a super holiday and were lucky to get in there before the mob arrives. And some new work awaiting your return as well.

You should definitely give it a go with the butter. I make all my own butter now and it's so easy and so superior to the shop product. It sounds corny but it's how butter used to taste, creamy with that slightly sharp aftertaste.

The beans are easy to do, but take a long time to do as the secret of the flavour is in the cooking time. You can make a massive batch and freeze them successfully in portions.

Anyways, soak your haricot beans (about 400g) overnight in cold water, drain and rinse. Cover with more cold water then boil rapidly for 10 mins and simmer for 30.

Now to make the sauce. In a flameproof casserole whack in 60g dark muscovado, 2tbsp tomato puree, 2tsp black treacle, 2tsp golden syrup, 2tsp mustard powder plus salt and pepper and warm very gently. When liquid, throw in a few rashers of chopped streaky bacon, 3 or four onions cut into quarters, the drained beans and enough water to get it to the consistency you want. Bring it to the boil then cover tightly and stick in a 140C oven for 4-5 hours (the longer the better).

Delicious.

[stackpole]

All sorts of different nuts I put in, and they make quite a rattle as you kneed the mix.

knead

Perhaps he meant kneed.

[Fungus]

Perhaps he meant kneed.

Perhaps me meant need.

[ladymuck]

I don't use a bread machine any more as I find it's just as quick and better for making nice shapes using "au natural" and an oven (with some sprayed water/dish of water in to avoid drying the bread out while cooking).

Have to admit I do tend to use it just for the kneading and such, and then do rolls or other shapes in the oven. Means I can get on with other things and not have to worry that I've forgotten about it (yet) again.

I have done garlic bread, very yum! Also done some herby ones, and an olive and sundried tomato. Just need to get the hang of a decent wholemeal loaf! Is it true that organic flour doesn't produce as good a loaf?

[hyperD]

Is it true that organic flour doesn't produce as good a loaf?

Not sure about that - I always use organic to avoid the enhancers etc It might be that the improvers used in non-organic flour could "rescue" or boost a bad bread mix but I've not noticed any problems with organic. Sometimes if the yeast is a little lazy it can take some time for the bread to rise but normally it the opposite: bread rises out of the bowl with the same enthusiasm as the green gunk from the b-movie Andromeda Strain.