By: Ayoe Lai
This post is a follow up to Summer Recipes for a Picnic in the Park: Part 1.
Now that you got the first two recipes for your own picnic in the park, you are almost ready to go. I will share with you some very delicious baked goods that we made to bring with us for our picnic.
Morning Glory Muffins
These can be made the day before to save time and you can keep them in your breadbasket or in the fridge. I prefer to bake them the same day as I am going to eat them, but I’ll leave that up to you to decide. The recipe for the Morning Glory Muffins can be found on my website.
Next up we have Artisan Bread baked in pot.
I recently learned that I have been baking bread the wrong way all my life. Now I have found out how to make the bread more like the ones you buy at the bakery, and less like it sometimes turned out for me: flat, boring and compact.
Do you want to know the trick?
Keep reading and you will find out.
Artisan Bread in a Pot
Ingredients
- 1g dry yeast
- 300g cold water
- 30g warm water
- 8g fine salt
- 100g mixed seeds and nuts
- 300g wheat flour (or 100g rye flour and 200g wheat flour)
- Butter or oil
It is very important that you stick to the precise measurements to get the best result.
Directions
- Mix yeast and salt with the 30g warm water till it has dissolved.
- Add in the rest of the water. Add mixed seeds and stir. I use pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds and sesame seeds, but you can mix and match as you like, as long as you only add in 100g in total.
- Add the flour and mix everything till just combined. I use a spoon to stir.
- The dough does not have to be uniform, just all wet. So make sure there are no dry lumps.
- Cover the dough with plastic wrap and let sit to rise for 12-16 hours on the kitchen table.
- Yes you read correctly, it needs to rise for a long time because we are using very little yeast and it will create lots of lovely bubbles to make the bread nice and light.
- Once it has risen for 12-16 hours, sprinkle lots of flour out on a table. Here it is important to make the layer so thick that there are no empty spots.
- With a spatula, gently scrape the dough out in ONE PIECE onto the flour. The dough is very sticky, so dip your fingers in the flour and very gently FOLD the dough in half in one swift movement. Then pat the dough flat by clapping on it. Do not knead or stretch the dough, as this will make the bread turn out flat and compact.
- Then fold two more times and clap it flat in between each time.
- When you do the fold, only do one fold from each direction. For example, fold from top to down, then from left to right and finish off with bottom to top.
- Now it is time to round the dough into the shape of the pot you are baking it in. You round it by gently folding the sides under all the way around.
- The pot should be no larger than 18cm (7 inches).
- Cut out a piece of parchment paper and line the bottom of the pot. Then coat the sides with a bit of butter or oil so the bread won’t stick to it when baking.
- Gently transfer the dough into the pot and cover with the same plastic wrap from before. Let it rise for 45 minutes.
- Turn on the oven to 210 C (410 F).
- Bake the bread for 40 minutes with lid on. Then remove the lid and bake for another 10-15 minutes till golden brown.
- Remove from pot and let cool on a rack.
If you want your bread to have larger holes in it, simply fold it fewer times. So play around with it and see how many folds it takes to get the texture you like!
Just remember, NO KNEADING!
-Enjoy!
Ayoe is a healing practitioner and teacher, a light worker as well as a cookbook author. She became a mother in October 2013 to a beautiful boy. In her healing practice Creating Great Health, she works with pregnant women and new mothers to help alleviate stress and other ailments such as postpartum depression. Her treatments are 100% natural and noninvasive, connecting with the energies of each client. With her husband she has the food blog Three More Bites and together they have written and published the cookbooks: “Cozy Cooking” and “Three Weddings and a Honeymoon”.