The Cloche - honey wheat bread

Okay, well Cairns has survived and narrowly missed being destroyed by cyclone Yasi.  The towns of Tully, Cardwell and Mission Beach south of us have not been so lucky.  I'm lucky to have power and internet access.  There's not much to eat, so I'm going to make some bread.

The first of my baking pots from the US have arrived.  The other one  - who knows where that is, now that the highway has been cut off to the south!  The one that has arrived is called a cloche, made of stoneware ceramic.

The whole idea of under cover baking is to preserve the moisture in a closed system within the oven.  This will do two things.  Firstly, the steam rises to the top of the enclosed container, and this encourages the bread to rise upwards instead of outwards.  The dough continues to rise within the container when it's first put into the hot oven, because it is initially protected from the intense heat of the oven.  The second thing is that the crust will be far crunchier due to the steam that is confined within the container.  There's also the combined outcome of the crust not hardening before the bread has cooked internally, so you end up with a well risen loaf with a good texture, rather than a sadly disappointing sized loaf with a dense texture.

Here's a picture of the cloche:

I think I will use this one for the usual type free-form loaves that don't need a tin, and use the pot that's still to arrive for the no-knead dough.  I'm trying a recipe in the brochure that came with the cloche.  Sadly, my Kitchenaid mixer blew its motor on this recipe so I have to buy another one.  I thought they were supposed to last forever?  I blame the cyclone.

Honey wheat bread


Ingredients


1 tbsp dried yeast
2 cups milk at room temperature
1/4 cup honey
3 to 4 cups strong white flour
2 cups wholemeal flour
1 tbsp salt
2 tbsp vegetable oil


Mix together yeast, honey, milk, oil, salt, wholemeal flour and 1 cup of the plain flour.  Add 1 more cup of plain flour at a time, until the dough is not too wet or too firm.  Err on the side of leaving it a little moist as you can always add more flour while you knead it.  I only needed to use 3 cups of plain flour.  Different types and brands of flour will absorb different amounts of liquid, wholemeal flour in particular, so you must be prepared to judge the amount required.  Knead the dough for 10 minutes, then place in a oiled bowl, cover with cling film and leave somewhere warm for 1.5 hours.  Knock the dough down, shape it into a round loaf and place in the centre of the cloche dish.  I use some polenta to cover the base in case the dough sticks.  Cover with the lid and leave to rise for an hour.  Preheat the oven to 190 C.    The take the lid off for 5-10 minutes until it looks cooked.