Grow bread in your Mini Green house!

I haven’t had the best success with some of the things I’ve grown this year, but all is not lost.  With the central heating switched off and an urge to make my own proper brown bread, I turned to my Mini Greenhouse to provide the perfect climate for my bread to prove.

Here is the recipe if you fancy growing some bread too!

Wholewheat Loaf with Oats and Seeds.

200g wholewheat flour

75g plain flour

75g mixture of sesame, poppy and sunflower

50g oats

25g bran

1 tsp salt

350-400 ml warm water

1 tbsp honey

15g fresh yeast or 1 sachet dried yeast

1 tbsp sunflower oil

Preheat oven to 200 c (400f) Gas mark 6 line or grease a 2lb loaf tin.

In a large bowl, mix the flours, seeds (except those reserved for scattering), oats, bran and salt.  Place 100ml of the water in a measuring jug, stir in the honey, then sprinkle in the yeast.  Leave for about 5 minutes until frothy (fresh yeast will be more frothy than dried yeast).  Add all the remaining water except for 60ml and sunflower oil and mix/knead for ages until it’s stretchy and elastic.

Pour into the dry ingredients and mix well.  I like the mixture to have a bit of bulk to it and not be too sloppy, if you know what I mean.

Put the bowl into your greenhouse and cover with a tea towel.  You can drizzle a little olive oil over if you want to.

Leave it until it has doubled in size.  Take out and bash it down to size again.  Re-shape and place into a lined loaf tin.  I buy those ready done liners from Lakeland.  Place back into mini greenhouse until its doubled in size and bake for about 45 mins.  Keep an eye on it.  It should sound hollow when you knock on its bottom!

Cool and serve with butter.  Yummy!