So here’s a recipe for you all to try. I can’t stop eating the results so sadly no pictures other than one of the paltry remains (sorry, I’m only just getting the hang of this).
Italian Whirly Bread (source: cheese and pesto whirls, Good Food mag)
450g strong white bread flour
Small teaspoon of fine salt
7g fast action yeast
1 teaspoon sugar
Some olive oil
Pesto (homemade, fresh, jar, fancy or original flavour, really doesn’t matter)
Sun blush tomatoes with half of their oil, briefly blitzed in a chopper
100g grated mozzarella
100g grated mature cheddar
To make the dough put the salt in a bowl, then the flour, then the sugar, yeast and a glug of oil (1 tablespoon should do it). Add about 250ml warm water and stir together until you get a dough. Too dry? Keep adding another splash of water until the dough holds together and is sticky to the touch.
To knead do the drag and roll: hold your dough with one hand and with the heel of the other drag an edge of it up and across the floured surface. Then roll that edge back to your still hand and turn the dough a quarter turn. Repeat. Keep this up for ten minutes until the dough is soft, but not really sticky any more, and quite stretchy.
Bung it in an oiled bowl in a warm ish room for an hour or so until twice as big.
Give it a few punches to get the air out, then roll into a rectangle. The dough should be just under alone centimetre thick. Now it gets a big like a cinnamon bun. Spread the dough with all your goodies and roll it up by lifting the long edge furthest from you and rolling in. Then cut into slices about 2cm thick and pop in an oiled baking tin, spiral side visible. Let the spirals grow and develop for another half an hr and then bake at 180 for about 35 mins. They should be golden and amazing by this time.
Cool slightly. Scoff.
Any exciting variations you try out, please note in the comments so I can give them a whirl (geddit? Whirl? Like the bread??)
mamaCaz 