Quick Loaf

Summer is not merely upon us, rather, it is downright smothering us! This oppressive heat is… wonderful. I love it. Yay summer, yay shorts, and yay baking. Oh wait, not yay baking… It’s far too hot to have the oven on! That’s a real shame…

I made this bread a while ago… Back when I was allowed to eat bread… While I am not meant to be eating bread at the moment, if I did actually make it again, I would definitely break my bread rule. I would just need to make sure I had someone to share it with, otherwise I would eat the whole thing! And that’s really not good for the whole “bikini body” thing everyone is on about…

Ingredients

• 400g white bread flour
• 125g wholewheat flour
• 2 tsp fine salt
• 25g butter
• 250ml warm water
• 175g raw, grated potato
• 2 tbsp malt vinegar
• 5 tsp instant yeast
• Oil for kneading

Method

1. Mix the flours and the salt together and rub the butter through the flour mixture
2. Stir together the warm water, potato, vinegar and yeast, and then add to the flour mixture, using it to bring the dough together
3. Leave the dough to rest for 10 minutes, then remove from the bowl onto an oiled surface for kneading. Knead well
4. Return to the bowl and leave to prove for 20 minutes
5. Remove from the bowl, shape (ball or traditional free-form oblong loaf shape), and place on a floured tray. Cover with a tea towel and leave to prove for 20-30 minutes. Preheat the oven to 220°C while waiting
6. Dust the loaf with flour, slash it down the middle, and place into the oven, on the middle rack, for 40-50 minutes. You may want to include a bit of steam in the oven by filling a small metal roasting tin with boiling water, and placing it on the lowest shelf (personally I have found that I end up with a soggy bottom when I do this, so I’m not really a fan – the loaf works with and without this step)

My local – Urban Angel Café

It’s taken me ages to get this post out, purely because I love this little café so much that I would rather spend my time eating there than being tortured by the glorious memory of it. That’s before I even have to edit all the photos of their amazing food. Gosh no, it’s just too difficult. Urban Angel Café is my new favourite little hot spot, and it’s less than 3km from home!

Amazing range of breakfasts and café meals – quinoa with apple and salted caramel, french toast with banana and nut butters (homemade), and hugely delicious chicken prego burgers

So I’m writing this post in the comfort of their wafts of freshly baked bread, with an unhampered view of their mountain of fresh biscuits, sitting on the counter, whips of steam still practically floating above them.

This is my first draw once I walk in the door: every day they have something new and interesting on offer, from bagels and mince pies to protein bars and cheesecake brownies. Cookies and doughnuts and all sorts of different breads keep the meals special on each visit

What I absolutely love about this place, is their modern menu. And I don’t mean modern in a pretentious way, where owners are trying to sell the “next best thing”. I mean they genuinely care about producing meals that taste amazing and happen to have all these amazing new superfoods in them. You can go to Urban Angel café on pretty much any diet, and you will probably find something that suits you – and it’s guaranteed to be delicious.

The bagel bun is my go-to breakfast as a protein filled bun of fresh sour dough bread. Their meals are original with everyone’s favourite toppings, like cream cheese! “Eggs done your way” is also one of the awesome things about the café

And if you’re not on a diet, they have these incredible brownies that were recommended to me by everybody – friends and strangers alike – that I tried to resist for so long. I knew that if I gave in, it would be over for me. And it was… My advice: stay away from the brownies if you value your waistline.

Sweet and salty mocha with a swirl of caramel. Literally best drink ever!

For the most part, their creativity is pretty spot-on. My first experience of their food wasn’t that great though. I ordered a peanut butter espresso milkshake and was highly disappointed to find it was made with homemade nut butter, a combination of peanut and cashew. In the end it just tasted like very milky coffee with chunks of nuts. But hey, that’s what happens when you try to be too healthy, it doesn’t always work out. Pretty good otherwise!

Their meals are reasonably priced and really generous, full of healthy goodness! Grilled chicken with beautifully flavoured sides – their mash was some of the best I’ve ever had!

Their service is great as well, always extremely friendly.

Urban Angel Café: Bakery, Café and Food Store can be found just behind the shopping centre in the office park (President Fouche Drive And Hawken Avenue, Randburg, Johannesburg). It’s a bit difficult to find, but I guess that way it can be a little piece of hidden gold until everyone learns about its magnificence.

I made bread…

…and it was wonderful!

This time last year, I was baking brownies. Brownies upon brownies upon brownies! It was definitely my thing.

This year, I am at home, with my own oven, my “own” (mother’s) kitchen, and I don’t need to borrow a kitchen from someone, where I would have to take all my own ingredients that were stored in the top of my cupboard above my clothes and linen in my bedroom… Yeah, it’s definitely good to be home!

It’s both a blessing and a curse though. Now I get to cook all the time. Which I love but which is also really bad, especially now that I am writing my final honours exams (from Monday. OMG I’m going to die! Wish me all the luck!). So, in between all the studying, and sometimes even instead of all the studying, I bake. And that is how this loaf came about.

I love cookery books. Aren’t they pretty? I really should use them since I have so many! It’s my “post-exams resolution”. That, and tidying up all the clutter in my room that has accumulated since I have had more pressing things to do (like “study”, which can be seen here and here). I have all these exciting cooking plans for the end of exams, it is so difficult to actually wait until they are over to start! Hence, procrastibaking.

 

So cookbook number 1 is a really cool baking book which I will share with you soon, once I have tried and tested a few more of its recipes. It is very educational, which, of course, is the whole point of me baking and sharing my lessons and experiences with you here on my blog! It doesn’t have enough pictures though, but I feel like complaining about that makes me sound like a child complaining over the quality of their picture book (or why grown up book are so boring). Time to grow up and get this honours degree I guess. Real world next year, bring it on!

 

Simple white bread loaf

Ingredients

• 400g white bread flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp instant yeast
• 300ml warmish water

Method

1. Place flour in a bowl. Place the salt in on the one side of the bowl and the yeast in on the other (don’t let them touch just yet)
2. Add the water and mix well. Don’t be afraid to get your hands in there!
3. When all the ingredients are well-combined (but don’t over-mix!), place the ball of dough in the bowl, cover with a cloth and leave for 10 minutes
4. Remove dough from bowl, place on an oiled surface (not floured), and knead, 6-8 turns (not too long)
5. Replace dough in bowl, and leave for 10 minutes. Repeat twice more
6. On final kneading, leave the dough in the bowl for 45 minutes to increase in size (still with a cloth over the bowl)
7. Remove the dough, and place onto a floured surface. Shape into an oval, or a weird circle, or whatever shape you manage to get out of it, no one will judge you if it’s not perfectly oblong
8. Place almost-loaf onto the pre-floured pan that the bread will cook on, cover with a cloth, and leave to prove (increase in size) for around 45 minutes
9. Preheat oven to 220ºC, dust loaf with a bit of extra bread flour, slash it down the length, not too deep, and place in the oven for 35-40minutes. Mine took 35 minutes, but ovens may vary
10. Remove from oven, allow to cool a bit, then lather with butter and devour, making sure you save some for soup later (there is still a springy nip in the air at the moment after all!)