Everyday Epicurean

Yes, the end of the slice had already been attacked – by me as it were.

My most recent baking effort has been to make sweet loaf with chocolate chips and pecan nuts in it. It was a big hit with the kids, or at least the ones that noticed (three year olds don’t notice this sort of thing).

h2. Ingredients.

h3. Sponge.

* 1 2/3 cup of warm milk
* 1 cup of flour
* 1 1/2 Tablespoons of active dry yeast
* 1 1/2 Tablespoons of honey

h3. Dough.

* 1 Tablespoon (level) of salt
* 2 1/2 cups of flour
* a handful of choc chips
* about a dozen pecan nuts, divided in half, one half halved, the other half chopped coarsely.

h2. Method.

Combine all the sponge ingredients together, whisk well and allow to stand until frothy or doubled in bulk.

Add in the remaining dough ingredients and mix well (I use an electric Kenwood Chéf mixer with the dough hook attachment). If doing by hand, you might want to add the ingredients gradually.

Once mixed, knead until springy (in the mixer this involves just leaving it on a setting of 1 for a couple of minutes). The dough will be sticky (and so it should be), so flour your hands regularly.

Place the sticky, springy dough ball in a greased bowl, turn once to grease the dough, cover with a tea-towel and leave in a warm place to double in bulk. In this cooler winter weather, I tend to heat the oven to 50C, turn off, leave the door open for a couple of minutes until the temperature inside has dropped to about 30C then rise my dough in there.

Once risen, remove from the bowl, knead a little more until springy, then place in a greased bread tin. Cover with the tea-towel again, and allow to rise in a warm place until the dough protrudes the desired amount from the top of the tin.

Carefully slash three diagonal lines across the top of the risen dough with a sharp serrated knife (this helps to retain shape during baking). Heat the oven to 190 – 200C and then bake the loaf for about 37 minutes. When done the base of the loaf should sound hollow when tapped.

Allow to cook on a rack before cutting.