Making Your Own Yeast and Black Garlic Bread

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Making your own yeast in a simple and lost art form within home economists. It's surprisingly easy and makes a much tastier loaf than dried yeast. It's just a matter of time and patience, but once you have created your own yeast you can keep it for years and years like aged whisky. When your homemade yeast is running low, simply add more water and flour into the starter. This will feed the fermentation process and will keep the good bacteria growing. To ferment the water, you can use just about anything from dried cherries to grapefruit. For the sake of this recipe I'll use sultanas as most people have a bag somewhere in their pantry.

Under the yeast starter recipe I've attached one of my preferred bread loaf recipes, I make this recipe 3 or 4 times a week for the soup bread at Kaffeine. It's also amazing toasted and served with sliced tomato and sprinkled with salt and pepper. There is also black garlic in the bread, this is probably a new ingredient for most people however it's quite easy to buy and most supermarkets now stock it. Black garlic starts as a regular white bulb, after a little heating and left to ferment, the garlic becomes sweet, dark and jellied. The best part is it has twice as much antioxidants and leaves no smell or bad breath.

Natural Yeast Starter:
100g sultanas
750ml filtered water
1 tablespoon sugar
Plain flour

Method:
Place all ingredients in a 1 litre jar and stir, screw on the lid. Leave the jar to sit for one week at room temperature and give the jar a little shake twice a day.
When the water has fermented, sieve out the sultanas and pour water into a bowl, stir in flour until you have a thick wet paste. Spoon yeast back into jar and screw on the lid. Leave to sit in the fridge for 24 hours before using.

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Black Gralic and Seeded Loaf:
750g strong flour
50g sugar
1 tablespoon sea salt
4 cloves black garlic
1 tablespoon linseeds
1 tablespoon poppy seeds
20g pumplin seeds
40g walnut pieces
100ml buttermilk
350ml warm water
3 tablespoon extra vigin olive oil
2 tablespoons of yeast starter

Method:
In a large bowl that attaches to a kitchen mixer add all ingredients, then place bowl in mixer and attach a dough hook. Knead the dough together on a low setting for 1 minute then turn up the speed to medium and knead for 5 minutes. Grease a large bowl with a little olive oil and scrap dough into bowl, wrap the whole bowl throughly with cling film and place bowl in a dark place for 24 hours.
Once the dough has proved turn out on a flour bench and knock out the air and knead until a smooth ball forms. Line a baking tray with parchment paper and put the ball of dough on tray. Lightly dust the top of the dough with flour and cover with a dry tea towel. Put the loaf in a warm place, near a sunny window or on top of a heating oven. Leave the dough to prove for 1-2 hours to double in size.
Heat the oven to 200ºC and place a large tray of water on the lower shelf of oven, this will help the dough get a nice crisp crust. When the dough is proven, bake for 30 minutes, and to test if the loaf is baked, turn the bread upside down and tap the bottom, if there is a hollow sound the loaf is ready. Leave to cool before cutting.

Poppy Cracker Sandwich with Pickled figs and Reblochon

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This is a great, little fancy snack to serve for afternoon tea: home-made poppy crackers sandwiched together with soft musky french cheese, cranberry sauce and pickled figs. This also makes ideal picnic food with a big glass of sauvignon blanc, however the weather conditions may not be ideal for this time of year, unless you're reading this from the southern hemisphere.

Crackers:
350g plain flour
200g salted butter
50g grated mature cheddar
2 tablespoon poppy seeds
1 tablespoon mustard seeds
1 teaspoon coriander seeds
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 teaspoon ground white pepper
1 egg
50ml cold water

Pickled figs:
12 dried figs
50ml red wine vinegar
1 clove garlic
2 bay leaves
100g sugar
1 tablespoon sea salt
500ml water

Cranberry Sauce:
200g fresh or frozen cranberries
100g sugar
50ml water

200g reblochon de savoie, at room temperature
30g wild rocket leaves

Method:
First make the cracker dough. Place a small pan over medium heat and add mustard and coriander seeds, move around the pan until lightly toasted and fragrant. Put seeds in a mortar and pestle, roughly ground into a powder. In a large bowl add the flour, cheddar, baking powder, salt, pepper and ground spices, and stir together. Cube butter, add to dry mixture and rub together until butter is incorporated into flour, add egg and water, knead into a rough dough. Wrap the cracker dough with a cling film and place in the fridge to rest for an hour.

Next pickle the figs by placing all ingredients into a pot and placing over high heat, bring to a boil and cook for 10 minutes until figs are tender. Remove from heat and transfer into container to cool.

For the cranberry sauce, place all ingredients in a small sauce pan and place over medium heat. Once simmering stir for 2-3 minutes to help break down the cranberries, then transfer into a food processor and blend until smooth. Place in a small container and leave to cool.

Once the cracker dough has rested roll out on a lightly floured surface until 5mm thick, using 10cm in diameter round cutter, cut out the crackers. Lay crackers on several baking trays lined with parchment paper, prick each one with a fork several times. You can press and roll the off cuts of dough to create more crackers if you wish. Place crackers in oven set at 180ºC for 12-14 minutes until golden and crisp. Leave the cracks to cool completely before using.

To make the cracker sandwiches, lay a few rocket leaves over the desired amount of crackers followed by a fig torn in half. Tear a knob of reblochon and place on top of the fig then garnish with a small teaspoon of cranberry sauce. Lastly sandwich together with another cracker, you should get about 12 cracker sandwiches from this recipe, with a few extra crackers to spare

Lemon, Mint and Poppy Tofu Salad

Here's a easy and almost fat free vegan salad. Generally I use a firm chalky tofu for salads as it gives bite and texture, silken tofu is nice but better for dessert making.
This is also the time of the year for excellent cucumbers and peas. Cucumbers are more fragrant than earlier crops and pea's are sweeter and juicer fresh from the pod. I highly recommend you shell your own pea's, this may be more laborious but definitely worth the reward.

500g firm smoked tofu
300g fresh peas
1 cucumber
70g washed rocket
4 lemons
4 tablespoons poppy seeds
6 springs of mint
1 green chilli
1 clove garlic
50ml extra virgin olive oil
Sea salt

Method:
Slice tofu into 2cm cubes and lay over baking tray. Juice the lemons and strain out the seeds, sprinkle tofu generously with salt then drizzle over the lemon juice and half the olive oil. Lastly sprinkle over poppy seeds and bake tofu in pre-heated oven set at 180oC for 20 minutes.
Finely dice chilli and garlic together, place a small pot over medium heat and add the remainder olive oil. Once oil is hot add, garlic, chilli, peas and a teaspoon salt, saute the peas till just tender then remove from heat. Using a potato masher very roughly mash the peas for a few seconds just to break the skin's a little.
Slice cucumber lengthways and scoop out the seeds, then cut into 2mm slice's. Once the tofu is cooked roughly chop the mint and sprinkle over tofu, when tofu has cooled down enough mix the mint and tofu together. To make the salad you can either make 4 individual portions or a large platter. First lay down rocket, sprinkle over cucumber and peas and lastly top with tofu and serve.

Samphire, Lemon and Poppy Muffins

My new favourite savoury muffin, salty, zesty and bits of crunchy texture. Samphire is a salty vegetable that grows in shallow sea waters or off rocks near coastal lines. Very delicate texture and taste similar to asparagus. I've seen samphire for sale in Waitrose near the seafood section, however not many other place's sell it. Maybe your local fish mongers if you're lucky!

450g plain flour
100g butter
2 eggs
100ml buttermilk
100ml milk
100g grated cheddar
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
100g samphire
2 un-waxed lemons
3 tablespoons poppy seeds
Good pinch of salt

METHOD:
 Melt butter and place to one side to cool slightly. In a large mixing bowl add flour, cheddar, baking powder, soda, samphire, zest of lemons, poppy seeds, salt and stir together. Beat the eggs in butter and add to the dry mixture along with buttermilk, milk and juice of lemons. Using a butter knife cut through the wet and dry till just under combined. Grease a 12 hold muffin pan with oil spray or butter and evenly distribute the mixture between the pan. Bake in oven set at 180oC for 25 minutes.
Once cooked leave to cool for 15 minutes before removing from pan.