BREAKFAST BREAD/PORTABLE ROLLS: Easy-Peasy, Low-gluten, High Protein, Low-sugar

Double Duty Dish (DDD):

Quick Breakfast Bread and/or Portable Sweet Rolls

Quick Breakfast Bread: moist & naturally sweet, studded with dates & walnut

This wonderful bread, easily transformed into portable rolls, is best enjoyed on a slow Sunday morning when every delicious mouthful can be properly appreciated.  But it is so easy to make, it can also be baked on busy mornings. The household can set off having had, or carrying, a gorgeous nutritous breakfast.  

Most of the preparation can be done the night before.  The fruit needs to be soaked in juice or tea overnight and the dry and liquid ingredients can be measured out and set aside for the morning.  Turn on the oven as soon as you're up, work the butter into the flour, add the drained fruit and wet ingredients. Bang it in the oven and 35-40 mins later: a lovely satisfying irresistable loaf.  

If portable rolls are your goal and mornings are always a terrible rush, everything can be done the night before.  The rolls should be well-wrapped in cling film and refrigerated.  Either bake them the next morning, after pre-heating the oven as soon as you rise; they'll take 20-25 mins.  Or bake the night before, cooling and wrapping individually in foil or cling film before refigerating. The rolls freeze well if stored in a self-sealing bags or an air tight container.

Spelt flour was used in this recipe; wheat or other flour is fine.  

Organic spelt flour* (67 uses Sharpham Park) makes a loaf of incomparable tastiness but Waitrose and Marks & Spencer do own-brand spelt flour.  

The recipe was adapted from Ina Garten, the Barefoot Contessa on the Food Network.

Cost: £1.50
Makes: 10-12 slices OR 5-7 rolls

1 9 x 4 1/2 inch/22x11 cm loaf tin

Ingred:
   juice of 1/2 orange or 1/2 teacup cold tea
   75 gm/ 2 3/4 oz coarsely chopped dates or currents
   240 gm/ 8 1/2 oz flour
   1 tbsp sugar
   1/4 tsp salt
   1/2 tsp baking soda
    zest of one orange
   75 gm/ 2 3/4 oz coarsely chopped nuts
   56 gm/2 oz cold unsalted butter
   200 ml cold buttermilk OR 150 ml yoghurt + 50 ml water OR 200 ml milk + 1 tbsp vinegar 
   1 med egg

Method:

The night before:

1. Soak dates/currents in orange juice or tea
2. Mix dry ingredients together; add nuts; cover
3. Cut butter in small cubes & refrigerate
4. Measure out liquid and add egg; refrigerate
5. Place a strip of greaseproof paper down the centre of the tin and hanging over the ends.  This helps the bread slide out easily

Before cooking:

1. Heat over to 190f, 170c/gas 5
2. Rub butter into flour
3. Beat buttermilk & egg with a fork until blended; add zest
4. Drain dates; add to flour and stir until dates are coated
5. Make a well in the centre; add wet ingred; mix thoroughly
6. Scrape mix into the tin 
7. Bake 30 mins.  
8. Remove bread from tin; turn upside down; return to oven for 10-15 min. 
9. Test for doneness by rapping the bottom with your knuckles; the bread should sound hollow.    

Tips: 

• If there's any left, this bread makes great toast
• For a savoury bread, replace fruit and nuts with olives 
• To make the bread and the rolls at the same time, either halve or double the recipe

PORTABLE SWEET ROLLS

These may look a bit free-form and squashed but they taste so good and the texture is so light, no one will care!  Take more time to shape the rolls if you wish.   

Breakfast Rolls, easy peasy

Once out of the oven, the rolls can be wrapped in paper serviettes and covered in foil. They transport well.  

Method: 

Follow recipe as above for Breakfast Bread until step 5.
Then:

1. Scatter a generous handful of oatmeal on a wooden board or marble slate
2. Scrape dough onto the oatmeal.  The dough will be very wet, almost unmanageable.
3. Using a spatula, roll the dough onto the oatmeal and keep rolling to form a sausage
4. Add a little more oatmeal if necessary, until sausage thins
5. Cut into strips 5-6 inch/13-15 cm long ('ish)
6. Slide a fish slice under rolls and transfer to baking tin lined with greaseproof paper.  Leave a little space around them 
7. Bake 20-25 min, turning rolls upside down after 17 mins. They're done when the bottoms are brown and crisp.

Tip: 

• For a lunchbox, add a couple of pre-packed fingers of cheese, baby tomatoes and washed, dried crunchy lettuce leaves
• The rolls can be split and filled with something vegetarian:  30% fat-reduced cheddar, lettuce and tomatoes, or cream cheese and halved seedless grapes or sun-blush tomatoes Skinnier Sandwich Fillings: Vegetarian, Meat, Fish

This recipe has been adapted by B M Lee/ Bright Sun Enterprises.  It may not be reproduced without the author's written permission.