Searching through my book of breads I came upon black bread. It brought back fond memories of the rush to join the throng following the bread van as it arrived with fresh warm supplies, back in the pre-Lukashenko Minsk of 1993. And then I had to get rye flour which meant another trip to Holland and Barrett as no other shop appears to stock it which strikes me as crazy in these days of burgeoning wheat intolerance.
And so to bread.
Preparation time: 20 minutes (plus 2 hours rising time)
Cooking time: 25 minutes
Skill level: Medium
Ingredients
- rye flour - 200g
- strong white flour - 150g
- strong wholemeal flour - 150g
- powdered milk - 2tbsp
- cocoa powder - 1tbsp
- salt - 1tsp
- fast action dried yeast - 2 tsp
- sunflower oil - 2tbsp
- molasses sugar - 3tbsp
- golden ale - 275ml
Put the assorted flours along with the milk powder, cocoa, salt and yeast in a large bowl. Add the oil and sugar. Warm through the ale and gradually stir into the flour to make a soft dough.
Knead on a lightly floured surface until you have a smooth, elastic dough - about 10 minutes. Put it back in the bowl and cover with oiled clingfilm. Leave to rise in a warm place for 1 1/2 hours or until doubled in size. If you have an airing cupboard that would be ideal as it really does need some good warmth to get it going.
Once in its large state, tip again onto the lightly floured surface and give it a good kneading. Shape into a ball and place on a greased baking sheet. Make a criss cross cut with a sharp knife and cover with the clingfilm, leaving for another 30 minutes until half as big again.
Bake in a pre-heated oven 200C/gas mark 6, for 25 minutes, or until a good brown colour.
Take out of oven. Ogle. Cool. Eat
‘Remember the price of bread!’
Verdict: Well it bears little relation to the dense black bread from the old country, but it is utterly delicious as you can taste the ale flavour which adds a totally new dimension, in a very good way. Works brilliantly with just butter or as the basis of a simple sandwich. You’ll want to taste the bread so don’t overwhelm your sandwich with too many other ingredients.
Drink: tea/water
Entertainment: Standing in the kitchen listening to Stephen Merchant and pals (the Steve Show) talking nonsense on a Sunday afternoon.
2 responses so far ↓
1 Teeenzzz // Mar 9, 2008 at 1:46 pm
Ah yes, the throng behind the Minsky bread van! The languor of youth - how unique and quintessential it is! How quickly, how irrecoverably lost! The zest, the generous affections, the illusions, the delights, the despair, the trips to a rather gloomy boolochnaya near one’s place of learning! I too remember the wide streets that were creamy with meadowsweet and filled with the smell of fresh, warm supplies of dense black bread arriving to the general gay hoorah of the babooshkas and friendly off-duty ball-bearing factory workers.
Erm…actually what a load of nonsense. I remember no such thing. What on earth are you on about?
2 Daisy // Mar 11, 2008 at 10:56 pm
Well Tinochka, Daisochka here, in those halcyon days of early 93 when we lived but a hop and a skip from the bread shop I do really actually remember seeing the babs following the van as it rumbled along the path to the shop. You were probably eating cheese in Moscow - at me - or perhaps you were laughing at the latest edition of Private Eye that somehow managed to come through our letterbox at a reasonably regular rate. Hell I don’t know. I just remember saying, ‘when we come back to England we’ll never remember just how profoundly bored we were’.
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