As Strong As Soup

I mostly use my breadmaker to save time making dough which I then finish by baking in the oven. But this apple bread recipe is intended for days when you really don't have any time at all to faff about and is made entirely in the machine. It's a useful standby bread for busy celebration times like Easter or Christmas. I wouldn't call this a brioche because to me brioche means a LOT of butter but it's an enriched, sweetened bread that does have the feel of brioche. It's less rich than a classic brioche but it's also a bit less of a threat to the waistline and it proves that the old baking trick of replacing some of the butter with apple purée really does work. This makes a fine breakfast bread but is not too sweet to be used alongside savoury foods. It toasts well (but it tends to toast quickly, so be careful).  If you happen to have any left over, it will make a very useful base for a dessert or two such as a classic bread and butter pudding.  I've used som...

This yoghurt bread is a soft, close-crumb, light bread that's great for breakfast but, I think, works well with savoury dishes too. I like it toasted and served with pâté. It's my alternative to a slice or two of brioche when I don't want too much sweetness or richness.  Not for the first time, I'm happy to allow my breadmaker to get on with the hard graft of making the dough for this bread. (Actually, this isn't a difficult or irksome dough to make if you don't use a breadmaker, but I've got other things to be getting on with.) I first came across similar yoghurt breads in France and so I tend to use a French T65 flour in this recipe (there's something about the softness of the flour that seems to work well) but other white bread flour will be fine.  I prefer to use a Greek-style 0% fat yoghurt for this bread but richer, higher fat yoghurts will be good too. It's best to avoid very thick, strained yoghurts, though. 1 tsp dried, fast-action yeast 225...

This is a fragrant, close-textured loaf with a good crust that's a bit out of the ordinary. It's just right for soaking up sauces or soups or serving with dips but it can also make a very decent, unusual breakfast bread. It's based on a North African bread but I won't deny that it's a long way from any genuine article. As ever, I'm happy to let machines do the heavy lifting and I use a breadmaker to prepare the dough. You can make the dough in a more hands-on way if you have the time, but the machine makes the preparation blissfully quick and easy. On this occasion I made some bulgur balls in aubergine and tomato sauce (or Patlicanli Eksi Asi) to eat with the bread. The recipe comes from my learned, online friend Ozlem Warren and you can find it in her lovely Turkish Table book. Believe me, it's truly delicious. Yes, I know that a North African inspired bread doesn't really belong alongside a dish from southern Turkey but I have never claimed to be auth...

This might seem a strange recipe for these difficult times when flour, yeast and fruit can be so hard to find but I recently bought a veg and fruit box from a restaurant supplier without knowing the contents. Oddly it contained quite a lot of grapes and this is the most comforting grape recipe that I know. Personally, I'd say it was worth using some of that precious flour and yeast. It isn't exactly an authentic, traditional recipe like the breads you might find from Italy or the south of France, especially given my usual desire to let machines do most of the work (in this case, the breadmaker). Still, who cares? It tastes lovely and the breadmaker does its best to reduce the level of faff. Of course, you don't have to use a machine, the dough can be made quite easily in a more conventional way. This is a particularly excellent breakfast bread for lazy mornings. But it's not only a jentacular morsel of joy, it's also lovely with cheese or paté and ideal for taki...

Fallue isn't an obscure Shakespearean character, it's actually one of the types of brioche that you might come across in Normandy. It's less sweet than some and uses crème fraîche instead of some of the usual butter. I promised to get around to posting this recipe when I said it was the chosen partner for teurgoule , although you really don't have to make a teurgoule to enjoy this bread. I know that all good food bloggers should spend many happy hours mixing and kneading their bread by hand and that would be nice but I honestly don't have the time. I use a bread machine to prepare this dough and I don't care who knows it. Of course, you can make the dough in a much more traditional way if you wish. Unlike some brioche recipes, this is very simple to put together and even simpler if you use a machine. I'm not claiming that this is an authentic fallue but it is based on some genuine Normandy recipes that I've had ferreted away for some time and that I...

This recipe is based (very loosely) on a bread from northern France although the original was an artisan product needing a lot more time and attention than most of us can spare for a loaf. So here's my simplified, busy person's machine-made version. It may not have quite the finesse of the original, but it still makes a very good alternative to the usual breadmaker loaves. In fact, it's one of my favourite machine breads. It works especially well with pâtés and cheeses. There are plenty of very good wheat beers available in supermarkets and specialist shops but if you come across any bottles of Noyon's Blanche de Wissant in your travels then I'd recommend grabbing some. It's a fine beer that's from the same area as the original recipe. If you can't lay your hands on any wheat beer, then you could use a lighter style of lager as an alternative. In fact this recipe can be adapted quite easily by changing the type of nut or dried fruit as well as the type...

Bonjour tertous ! OK. that's just about all the ch'ti I can speak but I thought it was about time for a ch'ti recipe. After all, it's from just across the channel so it's almost a local dish. In case you're not familiar with Maroilles, it's a soft cow's milk cheese with an orange rind that's made in northern France. Those simple facts sound harmless enough but there's a little more to it than that. The aroma of Maroilles can be scary. If you don't eat it quickly, it could start to set off fire alarms and endanger low-flying aircraft. On the other hand, it tastes great. As well as being a fine addition to the cheese board, it’s also a superb cheese for cooking. One of the commonest dishes using this pushy little cheese is the Tarte au Maroilles. You can find different versions of this tarte around Nord-Pas-de-Calais and Picardy but the most traditional form has a yeasted dough base rather than a layer of pastry. Think of it as a sort of e...

For this month's Random Recipe challenge Dom of  Belleau Kitchen paired off last month's entrants so that we could pick each other's recipes. I was paired with Lucy of the excellent Vanilla Frost . Sadly for poor Lucy I spend a fair amount of time off line and away from technology but we eventually managed make a suitable selection following some exotic numerology. I got Sonia Allison’s ‘Complete Bread Machine Cookbook’, first published in 2001. More years ago than I care to remember we bought a bread machine. They were very new at the time and, compared to today’s models, pretty basic. We used it off and on but it didn’t produce great bread. Years later I was given Ms Allison’s book and quickly came to the conclusion that the worst thing about our bread machine was the book of recipes that came with it. Thanks to Ms Allison I learnt a new respect for bread machines. OK I know that as a food blogger I should be making my own sourdough loaves in an oven fired by driftwood...

I enjoy the crumbly and buttery style of most polenta or cornmeal cakes but, just for a change, this one is more of a rich fruit loaf. It's a distant cousin of a Northern Italian cake but made the lazy way with a breadmaker. Like a lot of moist fruit cakes, I think this works best as a dessert with cream or something along those lines, but that doesn't stop me eating it with a cup of something warm in the afternoon. The order of the dough ingredients given here is correct for Panasonic breadmakers which add liquids last; other breadmakers reverse this order so it's probably best to follow the manufacturer's advice. For the dough:    ¾ tsp easy bake dried yeast    150 g white bread flour    150 g  fine cornmeal (polenta)    ¼ tsp salt    80 g caster sugar    25 g butter, softened    1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil    zest of 1 small lemon, very finely chopped    1 small eating apple,...

I was thinking about making some Chelsea buns when I succumbed to the lure of chocolate  - I'm so easily led astray. These aren't really Chelsea buns anymore - the dough I ended up making is actually a variation on one I use for a simple brioche-style loaf, so this recipe is probably closer to a French chinois.  But, whatever they are, they're suitably sticky and taste just fine to me. This recipe uses a breadmaker to make life really easy. You could make life even easier still by replacing the filling with nutella or other such spread, but where's the fun in that? This amount will make 8 buns. For the dough: ¾ tsp easy bake dried yeast 240 g white bread flour 30 g ground almonds 30 g light soft brown sugar ½ tsp salt 60 g unsalted butter, softened ½ tsp vanilla bean paste or extract 2 eggs, lightly beaten 50 ml milk For the filling: 50 g hazelnut butter (see below) 40 g unsalted butter, softened 50 g icing sugar 40 g dark chocolate, in chips or sma...

Oddly my wife seems to believe that you can have too many recipe books. At New Year 200 9 she challenged me to make at least one dish that I hadn’t made before from every one of the books that I’ve picked up here and there over the years. I’m not really sure how many that is but I’m sure it’s more than 200. Fourteen months later, I’ve managed 51, which is pretty poor, but I’m easily distracted.  During those 14 months I’ve only added half a dozen or so books to the collection and oddest among these additions is a copy of the Constance Spry Cookery Book that my father-in-law gave me. This book was published in the 1950s and comes from an alien world of shooting party luncheons, gills and yard men in country houses. It’s strangely refreshing to see food considered from such a different viewpoint.   One of the recipes in the book that particularly interested me is from a village baker in Savennières in the Loire valley. I didn’t really fancy making it the authentic Constance...

No doubt I should be far more authentic and homely and do my own proving and kneading without the aid of a machine. Well I do sometimes, but I really like my breadmaker. This recipe is a simple extension of the basic brioche loaf recipe provided with the machine but I’ve added ground almonds and flavoured it with lemon and vanilla in line with some brioche that I’ve seen on sale in France. I use a Panasonic breadmaker for this recipe, but for most other machines the liquid will need to go in first. I really like vanilla bean paste, but extract will do fine instead. 1 tsp dried, fast action yeast 400 g strong white bread flour 50 g ground almonds Zest of 1 lemon 3 tbsp sugar (golden caster sugar works well) 1 tsp salt ½ tsp (or thereabouts) vanilla bean paste 100 g softened, unsalted butter 3 medium eggs, lightly beaten 150 ml milk Ideally, the ingredients should be at room temperature. Add the ingredients in the order stated and bake with the following settings: “B...