Bread Loaf with Porcini Mushrooms and Tomato Pesto
Easy Bread with Porcini Mushrooms and Tomato Pesto
Mamta Gupta
I made this bread one day because I had a cup of nice Porcini mushrooms that I didn?t need for anything else and they were going out of date. I wanted to add chopped sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil, but only had a jar of Tomato Pesto at the time. So I used some of that instead. The resulting bread was very moist and delicious.
Ingredients
3 cups white strong flour
1 cup warm water (I often start with 1 1/2 cups and use what is needed out of it)
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tbsp. sugar
2 tbsp. butter (or olive oil)
A handful of dry Porcini mushrooms
1/2 packet or 1 level tsp. fast acting or rapid rise dry yeast
2-3 tbsp. tomato pesto or 1/3 cup of sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil, drained (you can use this drained oil in place of butter)
Instructions
Soak mushrooms in 1/2 a cup of warm water for 15 minutes. Drain, saving the water.
Chop/slice mushrooms.
Measure water in a jug, adding the mushroom water to it.
Add yeast, sugar and 3-4 tbsp. of flour from the measured amount of flour, stir and leave aside until frothy. Don?t worry about a few lumps. They will go as yeast is activated.
Meanwhile, measure everything else.
Place flour, salt, butter, pesto or sun-dried tomatoes and sliced mushrooms in a large bowl and mix.
Add enough liquid from the jug to make a soft dough. You don?t need to knead it much, just bring it together.
Cover the dough (I use a shower cap for covering) and leave it to rise until doubled. This takes about 3-7-10 hours, depending upon the temperature of your kitchen. Time is not that important, the dough should be well risen.
Now take it out on a floured surface, flatten it with your hand into a rectangle and fold both the edges inwards, overlapping.
Turn it over and repeat the whole processes again.
Lift it and place it wither in a bread tin (for a loaf) or on a tray for a free rise. Cover with a towel and leave until double in size again.
Preheat oven to 200?C or 400?F, gas mark 6.
Bake for 40-50 minutes, checking after 30 minutes, because oven performances vary and you don?t want to end up with a burnt bread.
Allow to cool on a wire rack.
