Abercrombie & Feast

A few years back we took an Italian cooking class.  The class met once a week after work in a local junior high school.  After hours the school was quiet and sort of creepily empty.  Our little classroom was a warm pool of light in the otherwise darkened school halls.  

We would all divide up, cook different parts of the menu and then enjoy the meal together at the end of class.  Some people would bring bottles of wine to share and we would listen to a CD of opera while we ate.  It was good fun and I learned a lot.  One of the most memorable things I learned was how to knead. 

I know, it’s so basic, but I had never kneaded anything until this class.  I was afraid to make my own pasta and the idea of anything requiring yeast and rising time scared the pants off of me. 

Our Italian cooking class taught me that it’s really not hard to knead things.  In fact, it can be therapeutic and quietly enjoyable to get your hands busy in piles of wet ingredients, working out any stresses on a smooth ball of dough.  I enjoyed it!

But the thing is, I don’t always want to knead.  Despite the undeniable tactile benefits of kneading dough, there are times when you just don’t want to get involved in that process.  Maybe you don’t have time.  Maybe you just got a manicure and don’t want to get your hands dirty (what??)  Maybe you just don’t want to clean off the inevitable bits of dough and flour that seem to cement themselves to your counter tops as you knead (don’t tell me that I’m the only one this happens to??)

With this bread, there is no need to knead.  The bread is fast to assemble and smells amazing while it’s in the oven.  It won’t rise as high as bread made with yeast and kneaded properly, but the flavour is so savoury and hearty, you won’t miss the loft.  Plus, this bread combines four of my favourite things: almonds, olives, cheese and clean counter tops. 

Quick almond, olive and buttermilk bread
(adapted from Delicious magazine)

 Makes one loaf

We’re home in Sydney.  It seems like no matter where we go on holiday, I’m always so happy to come home to our little apartment in Sydney. 

We had such a great vacation.  Lots of swimming, sunning and relaxing.  Lots of memories made.

Probably my overwhelming culinary memory of New Caledonia will be the bread.  An island-sized slice of France in the South Pacific, New Caledonia is a place of burnished skies, blue water… and bread.  Every food shop, no matter how small and dusty, had large stack of fresh, golden bread.  Baguettes, mostly.

Food is very expensive in New Calendonia.  For example, a lunch of lettuce wraps and spring rolls at a local Vietnamese place cost us about AU$60.  Ouch.  So, we brought a lot of our own food to make in our petite apartment on the beach.  But, we did splash out and buy bread- daily. 

I ate the bread for brekkie almost every day.  Topped with a cold slick of slightly salted French butter, or with a sweet, rich smear of peanut butter (brought over in our suitcase from AU) and eaten on our balcony overlooking the sparkling Pacific ocean each morning, the bread was a brilliant start to my days.

The view from our hotel on Anse Vata

The bread was also our snack during the days.  After a day in the sun, on the beach or by the pool, a cold bottle of Orangina and a hunk of crusty baguette, torn right from the loaf, would revive me for the afternoon (or my afternoon nap!)

Walking the streets of Noumea, the capital of New Caledonia, I would see dozens of people eating sandwiches made on fresh loaves of bread.  I would see dozens and dozens more with their newly purchased loaves peeking out of their shopping bags, backpacks and beach bags.  It seems I wasn’t the only one filling up on the ubiquitous loaves. 

With a crust as golden as the sunsets over the ocean, and an interior as white as the coral beaches, eating the bread in New Caledonia was like having a bite of the island itself.  Delicious.

It’s been really hot here for the last two days… just in time for the holidays.  No matter the temperature, something about the holidays always makes me want to bake.  Despite the fact that it’s really hot outside, we have no air conditioning and the heat from the oven makes my curls frizz up… I can’t help it! 

Today we set up our tree and decorated the apartment.  It looks so nice, all sparkly and twinkly.  The only thing missing was the homey smell of Christmas cookies wafting through the air.  So, I did the next best thing and I baked this bread.

This was supposed to be cranberry and orange bread, which would have been more fitting for the seasonal theme.  But, for the second Christmas in a row, I couldn’t find any frozen cranberries at my local store.  I swear, they stock frozen cranberries all year… but remove them from the shelves just in time for the holiday baking rush.  In the words of Stephanie Tanner, “That’s just rude!”  So I used cherries, a lovely summer time fruit, instead. 

Missing cranberries aside, this bread turned out beautifully.  Which I guess is actually kind of perfect.  This bread fits right in with our version of summer time Christmas Down Under.

Cherry and orange bread

Makes one loaf
Juice and grated rind of one orange
2 tbs vegetable oil
water
1 egg
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups frozen cherries
1/2 cup chopped almonds
2 cups plain flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

Preheat the oven to 180C (350F).  Grease and flour one loaf pan. 

Put the rind and the juice of the orange into a measuring cup.  Add the oil.  Add enough water to the measuring cup to bring the level up to 3/4 cup.

Beat the egg and sugar together with an electric mixer.  Add the cherries, almonds and orange mixture.  Stir to blend well.

Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt into a small bowl.  Add the flour mixture to the cherry mixture and stir well to combine completely.

Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan.  Bake in the preheated oven for about 1 hour, or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. 

Oh Spring, you fickle, flaky season.  On Friday it was cold and rainy.  On Saturday it was freeeeezing and rainy.  On Sunday it was sunny and breezy.  How is a girl supposed to know what to wear?  Or, perhaps even more importantly, what to cook??  One day it’s “soup-sipping on the couch under a blanket” weather- and literally the next day it’s “cider-sipping on the deck near the ocean” weather.

No matter what the weather is actually like where you are right now, this bread is appropriate.  I originally made this on Saturday when it was frigid and pouring and all I wanted to do was sit right in front of the oven while this baked.  The recipe is from Hometown Cooking in New England, and the weather was certainly more Maine than Sydney.  On Saturday, we ate this bread fresh from the oven, topped with thickly cut ham and spicy English mustard, for a warming lunch whilst the rain fell outside and the heaters droned away in the living room.   

Sunday dawned bright and sunny with a light breeze.  This was very lucky as we had plans that involved a pub near the water, a lot of friends and the beginning of my birthday celebrations.  I toasted up a few slices of this bread, topped them with a slick of cool cream cheese and a sprinkling of coarse salt… and ta da!  A gorgeous sunny weather breakfast that didn’t require me to turn on the oven or use the stove at all.  Hurrah!

 
Obligatory birthday photo

This bread didn’t take long to make, but I admit the preparation was easier because I used my food processor.  If you had to shred the apple and the cheddar by hand, it would take longer.  But it would still be worth it just to smell this bread as it bakes.  You could make this to go along with soups, to make sandwiches out of, for morning teas or just for a mid-day snack.  Unlike Spring, this bread is equally lovely every day.

Apple, Walnut and Cheddar bread

Makes 1 loaf

1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup sugar (I used just barely 1/4 cup because I didn’t want this to be too sweet)
2 eggs
1 cup shredded tart apple (I used a large Granny Smith apple)
3/4 cup finely chopped walnuts
1/2 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup plain flour
2 tsps baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup skim milk

Preheat oven to 375F or about 190-200C.

Cream the butter and sugar together in a large bowl until light and fluffy.  Beat in the eggs one at a time.  Add the apples, 1/2 cup of the walnuts and the cheese and mix well.

In a separate bowl, combine the whole wheat flour, the plain flour, the baking powder and the salt.  Add 1/2 the flour mixture to the apple and cheese mixture and stir.  Add the other 1/2 of the flour mixture and the milk and stir until combined.  Add a bit more milk if it’s too dry, but you shouldn’t need it.  The batter is very lumpy.

Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan.  Sprinkle the remaining walnuts and a few flakes of coarse salt on top.  Bake for 35-45 mins, or until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean.  Another trick to see if your bread is done is to tap the bottom of the tin.  If it sounds hollow, the bread is done!

Let cool in the pan for a few minutes, then remove from the pan and cool on a wire rack.