Earlier in the week I had dinner at the Orrery in Marylebone. I like its location at the quiet top end of Marylebone High Street, and I like its fuss-free set menus. To start, I always have the seafood raviolo and lobster bisque, but the pleasure of eating it has diminished greatly now that they publish the number of calories it contains. At a whopping 1,014 calories, it is half the daily intake recommended for an average woman.
What is an average woman? In the Little Miss series by Roger Hargreaves, there are characters such as Little Miss Sunshine, Little Miss Bossy, Little Miss Neat and Little Miss Trouble. There is no Little Miss Average because no one really wants to be average. However, until someone comes up with a formula that can modify the daily recommended calorie intake to accommodate my unique physiology, I am stuck with 2,000 calories a day.
To make amends for that dinner, I made a fat-free soup for lunch accompanied by home-made bread. I have not made bread for a long time as we are spoilt where I live, with at least a dozen bread shops within a 20-minute walk from my doorstep.
Here are the previous recipes for the flowerpot bread and red pepper and tomato soup. Today’s recipe for the bread is below, followed by the soup in the next post. The major improvement in the kitchen since the original recipe is that I now have a dough-proofing function in the oven. I made the dough in my Thermomix but you can make it conventionally by hand, with the dough hook in a KitchenAid or in a dedicated bread machine.
Today’s bread had sesame, poppy and pumpkin seeds and walnuts
For the Bread:
310 g water
2 teaspoons dried instant yeast
1 teaspoon runny honey
200 g organic white bread flour
300 g organic wholegrain spelt flour (I used Doves Farm)
15 g walnut oil
15 g olive oil
2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
2 teaspoons blue poppy seeds
2 teaspoons toasted white sesame seeds
2 tablespoons pumpkin seeds
30 g walnut halves
How to Make:
Prepare the terracotta pots by lining them with baking parchment (see below).
Oil a large mixing bowl and set aside.
Place the water, yeast and honey in the Thermomix bowl and warm 2 minutes 30 seconds/ 37 C/ speed 1.
Add the flours, oil, vinegar and salt. Knead 3 minutes/ dough setting.
Add the poppy seeds, sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds and walnuts. Knead 1 minute/ dough setting.
Turn the TM bowl upside down over the oiled mixing bowl and let the dough drop down onto it. Cover the bowl and and leave the dough to rise for around 45 minutes or until doubled in size.
Divide the risen dough into four equal parts and shape each part into an elongated ball that will fit into the flowerpot. The best way I can describe this is that you are aiming for a giant molar. Imagine a tooth for a giant.
Allow the dough to rise again, around 30 – 40 minutes. At this point, you can make a snip at the top with a pair of scissors but this is strictly not necessary.
Bake in an oven pre-heated to 200 C fan /220 C for 25 minutes.
Remove the pots from the oven and let the bread cool slightly before peeling off the baking paper.
The bread can be reheated for 5 minutes in an oven at 160 C fan / 180 C. It is an idea to quarter each loaf beforehand then place back in the pot before reheating and serving, which makes it easier to share at the table.
The bread before and after the first proofing
The bread before and after the second proofing
Fresh out of the oven
Use baking parchment to line the flowerpot: place a small circle at the bottom of the pot, and line the sides with a long strip (4 inches / 10 cm height)
I don’t know how many calories there are in this bread, but can confess that any inroads gained by making the fat-free soup was completely negated by the lovely French butter we ate with the bread. Some you win, some you lose.