Mid week bread baking - with sausages in!

I don't normally get the chance to bake much bread during the week as I do shift work, though luckily was on the 'early' today and as the beloved was going to be home later this evening the kitchen beckoned and I decided to make some bread, using a pretty failsafe recipe translated and passed on from the Italian In-law's :) I also realise that I've been using this base recipe for a couple of years now and never blogged it!

This dough makes rolls, loaves and is very flexible as can use fresh or dried yeast, plus a variety of things liked dried herbs or even sweeter with a few rum soaked raisins and cinnamon! Flavoured oils are also good, I like to make rosemary infused oil specially for breads. Depending on the time of year it seems and flour ratio you may need a little more or a little less liquid.

Overall I like to mix 70/ 30 mix of organic stoneground wholemeal and strong white bread flour for most of my bread but today just used strong white bread flour and made some poppyseed rolls, along with a few experimental ones filled with a half a bockwurst sausage (like frankfurters!) which were really good!

When I was in Amsterdam last year I had something similar and had been meaning to make ever since, were very tasty warm from the oven!

Amsterdam Bread -

Todays mix was:
450g strong white bread flour + extra for dusting
1 x 7g sachet fast action yeast
280ml warm water (maybe go for 250ml next time as needed a little more flour)
2 tsp EVOO
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar

A little milk for finishing

Place the yeast, sugar, 1 tbsp flour and 1/2 the water in a bowl, mix well and leave to settle for about 5 minutes.

Sift the flour, add the salt and mix in, make a well in the middle. Add the remaining water and oil to the yeast mix, stir into the dry ingredients until you have a dough, tip onto a well floured surface and knead for 5-10 minutes until soft and smooth, place in a covered bowl and allow to rest in a warm place for 45 minutes or until doubled.

Tip out onto a lightly floured surface, knock the air out and shape as desired! Either milk or egg wash, you can sprinkle with herbs, cheese etc at this stage. Allow to rest for a further 20 minutes or so. Heat the oven to 180o fan/ 200o. Small rolls will take about 12-15 minutes, turn upside down and tap - if hollow sounding then will be cooked. Allow a little longer for larger shapes. Can really recommend using baking parchment to line your tins as no sticking!

These are previous ones using the base recipe:

Left: Italian herb - right: Sultana and rum

Seeded bun loaf and mini rolls

Poppyseed topped with rosemary oil and herbs round loaf: