BLOGGER'S VEGGIE FAVES: QUICK BREAKFAST BREAD/ROLLS

Double Duty Dish (DDD):

Quick Breakfast Bread and/or Rolls

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

This wonderful bread, easily transformed into 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  formed and laid out nicely on a tray.  Either bake them immediately, allow them to cool and wrap individually in foil or cling film before refrigerating.   

If you're baking them the next morning cling film the pre-formed rolls on the baking tray and refrigerate.  As soon as you rise, take them out of the fridge and pre-heat the oven. They'll take 20-25 mins.  

Cooked 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 (pref) OR 200 ml milk + 1 tbsp vinegar 

   1 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, the bread makes great toast
• for a savoury bread, replace fruit & nuts with olives
• tomato bread & rolls at the same time, either divide the dough in two, 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 like.   

Breakfast Rolls, easy peasy

If you're transporting the hot or warm rolls, wrap loosely in paper serviettes and place in a container with the lid off to stop condensation.  

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 fat sausage, big enough for 5-6 decent sized rolls.
4. Cut into strips 5-6 inch/13-15 cm long ('ish)
5. Sprinkle with oatmeal
6. Slide a fish slice under rolls and transfer to a baking tray 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.

Tips:

• for a lunchbox, add a couple of pre-packed fingers of cheese, baby tomatoes and washed, dried crunchy lettuce leaves
• Or split and fill the rolls with something vegetarian: 30% fat-reduced cheddar plus salad OR cream cheese and halved seedless grapes or sun-blush tomatoes OR 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.