Olive and Rosemary bread

In between all the downpours, I've been diving outside, trying to tidy and sort out the garden a bit. Whilst like many gardeners I was hoping for a bit of rain to help the plant life, I think the continuous rain joke is now wearing a bit thin! I put a couple of Mediterranean veggies into pots the other day but unless we get some sun soon, their hopes of a strong future are looking a bit limited!

With the poor weather in mind, I thought I'd bring a bit of the Continent into the kitchen and this morning baked Olive and Rosemary bread.

More Jubiliee Baking - White Farmhouse Tin loaf

Another recipe from Dan Lepard's 'Short & Sweet' book. This loaf uses what he calls the 'half sponge' method. You can start off the yeasty bit hours before you need to do the rest so it's a good one to do if you have to go out or you could do it the night before.

There's definitely more work in this one than the Easy White Loaf I did here but it's still not hard. I did mix up the dough when it came to it in my Magimix to save a bit of time because I'm not keen on the whole rubbing in method. That phrase just always takes me back to school Home Economics lessons!

Having said that, it still wasn't difficult, just a bit more fiddly than the other one. Taste wise, we weren't able to tell the difference between the two. Just because the Farmhouse loaf has fat in it, I imagine that one would keep a little longer - but that doesn't seem to be a problem we are having! The loaves are only small anyway so never really get a chance to go stale, as you can see from the fact I had to photograph the last few slices before they too disappeared!

All in all, another good recipe from this book. I'm eager to try the Cheese and Chive version of this one soon.