Domestic Science

One of the things that i love to do is cook, which is probably a good job as it is also expected by Owner that i will do all the cooking! Being the one who prepares the meals has been a great opportunity to try out new recipes and ideas ove the past few years and has also re-introduced me to the pleasures of baking. i've come to love baking of all types, biscuits, cakes and breads. In fact baking bread is a particular passion of mine and i recently treated myself to an excellent book by Richard Bertinet called 'Dough: Simple Contemporary Bread' It is a wonderful book full of great bread recipes. This morning i decided to have a go at making my own version of one of Richard's breads, namely tomato, garlic and basil bread - except i also added some goats cheese to the bread as well. The recipe is as follows:

For the dough

250g strong bread flour
10g sea salt
yeast (i used instant)
5g salt
10g coarse semolina
25g extra virgin olive oil

For The Ingredients

1 punnet of cherry tomatoes - sliced in half and sprinkled with herbs, salt, pepper and sugar and dried in over for 2 hours at 100 degrees celsius
10 cloves of garlic - peeled then sauted in olive oil, butter and sugar before transferring to oven and cooking in mixture at 180 degrees celsius for 20 minutes

When the dough is ready stretch it out onto a flat surface, cover with the tomato's, garlic, basil leaves and goats cheese. Then fold one end in on top by a third. Take the other end and do likewise so that filling is covered. Tuck the ends of the dough underneath themselves to seal. Then slice the dough in half and place on a baking tray in oven at 220 degrees. Place so that the open end of the dough (which you can see the stuffing in) is on top and open up the dough slightly. Then bake for 20-25 minutes.

The end result looked like this;


Owner seemed very happy with the outcome, especially as i had also had my first go at making cappuccino's using a new milk frothing device (just a metal jug with an internal plunger and sieve in reality - but works a treat). i've never made these at home before and Owner seemed very happy with the result;

Owner seemed very pleased with my efforts, hopefully i've got my new pet status off to a good start!