On the last Wednesday of our term at university, my flatmates and I decided to have our own Christmas dinner. It was great and I felt so Christmassy that I decided to cook all day! I decided to make a Christmas loaf. This consists of rich dough with lots of dried fruit in. Dried fruit is normally very expensive but around this time places like Aldi, Lidl and Poundland are doing massive savings on bags of random dried fruit. Therefore I thought it was the perfect opportunity to try out a new recipe!
This recipe is also a great way of using up the last eggs and milk before the end of term and since it was a fruit loaf I hoped it would last the last few days of term too! (It didn’t, it was eaten too quickly!).
The recipe is as follows:
250g strong white flour
3g salt
1 sachet of yeast
20g butter
25g sugar
80ml milk
80ml water
1 egg – beaten
170g mixed fruit
1tsp cinnamon
½ tsp mixed spice
Start by placing the flour and spices in a bowl and mix them together. Add the yeast, sugar, salt and butter. Mix the water in with the milk and then gradually add this mixture into the floury mixture. Now add the beaten egg. Bring the mixture together to form dough. Lastly add the dried fruit. Knead the dough for a good 10 minutes. It is hard work so be ready for your arms to ache! Once the dough feels smooth and stretchy place in a bowl and leave to rise for 1 hour.
After 1 hour, the dough should have doubled in size. Knock back the dough and knead it for a couple of minutes. This dough is quite wet so it is hard to shape. I decided to place it in a tin to prove rather than leave the dough on a tray. This is because I didn’t feel it would hold its shape very well without some support.
Leave the dough to prove for about 30 minutes and then place in a hot oven for 15-20 minutes at 200°. Keep an eye on it after 10 minutes as the fruit on top can burn easily. Once it is ready the top should look golden. You can then leave it to cool and add an icing or just eat it warm with a load of butter. Enjoy!
More bread less dough 