Tuesday 29 May 2012

Quick Walnut & Pecan Bread


Despite having made bread many times (favourites being pizza dough, Fat Mum Slim's brioche, and Annabel Langbein's Busy People's Bread), I always feel a bit intimidated by the thought of it.  I'm not sure why though.  If you choose a straight forward recipe, it's actually incredibly simple. And VERY satisfying to eat your own bread!!!  I highly recommend trying Annabel's bread that I've linked above as a super simple but really yummy bread. I make it very often.  One day I invited myself over to my friend Claire's house with both of my kids in tow at and was supposed to stop for bread on the way.  It was literally easier for me to make this bread than to stop at the bakery with my two kids!!!! My 3 year old does most of the making of that bread, just a wooden spoon and bowl recipe.

A couple of weeks ago, the bread queen Phillippa led a bread making masterclass on Masterchef.  She made a walnut bread that looked incredible.  Recipe is here.  The same week was Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution.  Ruth had written a post about it (here) and had also posted a series of photos on Instagram of one of her gorgeous boys baking the walnut bread.  It only took the very first Instgram pic to motivate me to make walnut bread that Saturday morning too!  We had a couple of handful of fresh walnuts that were sitting around waiting to be shelled so it was a perfect craving.

However, I didn't have all of the ingredients (or the patience) for proper bread.  It was already 10:30 and I knew the boys would be starving by 11:30.  I googled a few recipes on my phone and found a recipe by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall (from the British show River Cottage).  I still didn't have all of the ingredients for this recipe either, but chose to adapt it and stay in my pjs rather than go to the shops!

There is no yeast in the bread, so no proving or resting or rising time. It's a sweet bread so I think you could lessen the honey/golden syrup significantly if you wanted to, but the sweetness is lovely.  It's more of a stand alone bread rather than for sandwiches.  Perfect with some special cheese or simply good quality butter.

Here is the version I made with Mr 3.

Quick Walnut & Pecan Bread, based on a recipe by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.

Ingredients:

  • 200 grams of 00 flour
  • 300 grams of wholemeal plain flour
  • 100 grams of walnuts
  • 100 grams of pecans (or any combination of walnuts & pecans or just one of them, whatever you have or whatever you like!)
  • 150 grams of honey or golden syrup (again, you could also do a combination which is what I did.)
  • 4 teaspoons of baking powder
  • 10 grams of salt

Directions:

  • Preheat oven to 190-200 degrees Celsius
  • Put flours & baking powder in a large bowl




  • Heat the honey/golden syrup in a small saucepan with 300ml of water until dissolved (but not hot.)



  • Divide the nuts in to two halves - one half, keep the nuts in chunky pieces




  • For the other half, crush them up in to a rough chunky powder






  • Add both piles of the nuts to the flours & stir well




  •  Add the honey/golden syrup water to the flours and mix gently until combined (but don't over mix)




  • Turn on to a lined baking tray and shape in to a circle or oval





  • Cut two slits quite deeply in to the bread and put in the oven for 30-40 minutes until the bread is brown and well risen. That's it!




  • Serve warm with butter or really lovely cheese. My favourite is marinated feta - YUM!!!  Although my sous chef likes his with jam. :-)





Happy Baking!

Love Amy xoxoxo

14 comments:

  1. god, that looks delicious! I'll have to try it

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    1. Super quick too for a mama with a bub on the move!!! ;-)
      xo

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  2. I reckon even I could have a go at that!

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  3. Ah, I LOVE baking bread & can't wait to try this recipe. I can't wait to try all the recipes you've linked to by the way. :) xxx

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  4. I just love homemade bread, it's one of my favourite things. This sounds like a great recipe! I love HFW's recipes - have you seen his recipe for apple, guinness and cheese soda bread?! That's on my list to try too :) x

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    1. Me too Phillippa and I can't believe how good and easy some bread recipes are for making at home. That HFW bread sounds awesome - will look that one up too!xoxo

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  5. Looks beautiful and best of all EASY!
    Rebecca x

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  6. Hi there, I've just stumbled across this - thru Instagram no less! - and it looks delicious. I'm just wondering, what is 00 flour? Excuse my ignorance...

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    1. Hi Lulu,
      So glad you stumbled over here! :-)
      00 flour is a finely milled white flour that is used for bread and pasta. You can buy it at Coles & Woolworths these days. I'm sure you could substitute plain white flour if you can't find it where you are though.
      xo

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