Picnic bread.

Today was our annual Long Table Lunch Picnic Day. This happens to be one of my favourite days of the year, a group of us pack a picnic, wine, chairs and nibbles and spend the day on the bank of (and usually in) the Latrobe River just outside of Moe. We set up our tables, spread with the fare to share and sample each others offerings. I usually take lots of photos of the day, but this year I just kicked back and relaxed. I didn’t even get in and have a swim, first time ever that’s happened.

I made a few different breads to take, this pic is of me trying to juggle dough in my makeshift kitchen. This is my entire bench space! Left to right shows walnut, apple & cranberry dough. This was made by pulling dough into a rectangle and spreading it with chopped walnuts, cranberries that had been soaked to ‘fluff’ them up, a grated apple and a sprinkling of brown sugar, cinnamon and mixed spice. I had thought I would make a twist from this but it evolved differently. Back left is dough that is going to become herb batard, plain batard and baguettes and on right are 2 loaves of normal family bread. The herbs in front went into the  herb loaf along with a finely chopped chilli and some grated parmesan cheese.

Things change! I decided to put the two pieces of the walnut dough together to even out how the nuts were distributed and this turned into a big roll. I curled it up and put into a tin.

This went into my ‘toy oven’ with a dutch oven lid over the top for about 25 minutes then without lid for about 25 more minutes until internal temp hit about 105. Wasn’t at all confidant that this would work………

Not to worry! I iced the bun and added finely grated lemon rind zest. This was a winner!

Everyone  at the picnic loved it and I asked for feedback about what to change, we decided that maybe just a clear bun glaze with the lemon might be better. It was very divided between icing or no icing, but all agreed it was lovely.These are the other loaves after baking. All in all a good bake considering the baguettes and batards were cooked on the gas barbecue. The herb bread was a winner again and I have a couple of people wanting me to make them some on a regular basis. That’s  lovely’

I did some more paint removal on the chimney before we headed off to the picnic and it is ticking away nicely. Slowly, but nicely. Very happy indeed with the PeelAway product.

Guess what tomorrow’s job is!