Breadmaker Grape Bread

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 taking on picnics (if you can remember those). To be honest, it can be eaten just as a snack on its own at any time of the day or night.

This type of bread is usually made at the time of the grape harvest in wine producing areas. It may not be harvest time right now but at least I can claim that Surrey produces some very good wines these days. In fact, the restored historic vineyard in Painshill Park first produced Surrey wines nearly 300 years ago and is only a short walk from my front door. I can only hope that I'll be able to visit it once more before too long.

Although I used a dessert variety, grapes grown for wine production can have a more interesting flavour and are well worth trying in this bread. 

180 g grapes (a deep red grape looks good but any colour is fine)

For the dough:

     1 tsp dried, fast action yeast

     450 g white bread flour

     2 tbsp sugar 

     1 tsp salt  

     60 ml olive oil (a light and fruity variety ideally) 

     250 ml water

To finish:

     Olive oil for brushing the top of the bread

     Sugar crystals (optional)

     Vanilla salt (even more optional)

Put the grapes onto a non-stick or lined baking tray and place in the oven at 100°C for 40 minutes. Remove and leave them aside to cool. This will partly dry the grapes and concentrate the flavour. 

Add the dough ingredients to the breadmaker. The order of ingredients given here is for a Panasonic breadmaker and, if you have a different type of machine, you may need to reverse this order. Please check the instructions for your machine. Use the pizza dough program on the breadmaker to make the dough. If your machine doesn't have that program, then just use the standard dough program.

Once the machine has done its job, remove the dough and divide it into two equal parts on a lightly floured surface. Stretch or lightly roll each half of the dough to form two circles of around 24 cm and lay one of the circles on a non-stick baking tray. Place half the grapes randomly on top of this circle of dough. Cover with the second dough circle, creating a grape sandwich. Press lightly around the edges of the dough sandwich to seal them. Add the remaining grapes to the top, pressing them lightly into the dough. 

Cover the dough with a clean cloth and leave it somewhere warm to rise for between 30 and 60 minutes. It should roughly double in size.

Brush the top generously with more olive oil and sprinkle lightly with sugar crystals, if you have any. I also sprinkle with a dash of vanilla salt but that's very optional if you don't fancy it.

Bake at 190°C for 25 - 30 minutes until the top of the bread is nicely browned and the loaf sounds hollow when tapped. Cool on a rack. This bread is probably best eaten within a day or two, but it does freeze well if you want to keep it longer.