Buttermilk Bread

This recipe is in the Thermomix Everyday Cooking book and I added some pepitas, pumpkin and linseeds. I've heard that it's a little difficult to make because the dough is very soft and sticky.

I've learned that with very soft doughs, one must not play with them too much. They will just get stickier! And, when you do try to knead a soft dough, there's a tendency to add flour to it to make it more manageable. This just changes the entire ratio of flour to liquid and the resultant loaf will not be as soft and fluffy as it should.

For the first rising of this loaf, I oiled my hands to remove the dough from the Thermomix bowl on to the ThermoMat. I then wrapped it up and placed it in the warm, turned off oven. Dough likes to have to work at rising, so wrapping it in the mat makes the dough work harder.

Unfortunately, I got chatting to my DD and when I checked the dough after a good hour, it had escaped from the mat and oozed into my oven! Luckily, I had cleaned the oven recently, so I just scraped it all back up and used a little flour to form a Vienna shaped loaf. The dough was already quite large, so instead of a second rising, I popped it into a cold oven set to 220C and baked it for around 20 minutes (still chatting with my DD, so not sure). The loaf rose beautifully without spreading out too much.

The inside is deliciously soft and fluffy and filled with holes like Ciabatta. I highly recommend this recipe. It would also make an excellent Cob Loaf.