Peppers Galore

Now here's a thing,   I was lucky enough to get a glut of jalapeño peppers in my organix vegetable plot at home.  What to do with them?  A sweet chilli sauce sprung to mind, as it is a house favourite, but my thoughts swiftly turned to uses at the bakery.

When we had the shop in London, Liz would occasionally make a recipe for a sweet red pepper bread - despite our slight reluctance to make bread with bits in - and it was a wonderful soft loaf, the dough streaked with red from the fresh peppers.  I can't help but wonder now whether a spicy take of this recipe would translate and be as successful.  After some experimentation with quantites, we have  come up with the following, which combines the two peppers and so is both sweet and spicy.  Kind of like a sweet chilli sauce of a bread.  At the shop we would make a chili-pepper ciabatta from time to time, and it packed a wallop.  This tempers the heat of the chillis with the sweetness of the red pepper.  Here's the recipe for you to try at home:

 

500g Strong White Flour

10g Salt

12g Fresh or 6g Active Dried or 5g Instant Yeast

10g Olive Oil

290g Water

1 red pepper - roasted, skinned and seeded.  Roughly chopped

2 small jalapeño peppers (or other chilli peppers) - roasted, skinned and seeded  (use rubber gloves).  Roughly chopped

 

By Hand:  Mix all the ingredients together except the peppers and knead for 10 minutes.  Add the chopped peppers and continue kneading for another 2 - 3 minutes.

 

By Mixer:  Combine all the ingredients except the peppers and mix for 2 minutes on slow and 6 minutes on fast.  Add the chopped peppers and mix for an additional 1 - 2 minutes

 

Place the dough in a well-oiled bowl, cover with cling film and leave to ferment for 1 hour.  Knock-back the dough by folding the sides into the centre, and leave to rise again for an additional 20 minutes.

 

Turn the dough out onto a lightlly floured surface and roll it up into a tight sausage.  Leave to rest, coevered, for 5 minutes.  After the dough has rested,  elongate the sausage to a rope approximately 45 cm (18 inches).in length.

 

You can now shape the dough into a horseshoe shape, or, for the more ambitious, a 1-strand plait.  To make the 1-strand plait, place the rope of dough vertically in front of you.  Make a "6" with the rope, with the "bowl" of the 6 at the bottom.   Place the bottom end of the rope (the bit that makes up the "bowl" ) over the vertical part of the rope leaving about 8 cm (3 inches) overlapping.  Now (if you're still with me), pull the top of the rope through the loop of the 6 at the bottom, and twist the loop so that the bottom is now the top.   Thread the tail of the rope through the loop.  That's it. 

 

Brush the loaf with egg-wash and leave the moulded loaf to prove, covered, for 30 - 45 minutes in a warm, draught-free place until well risen and puffy.

 

Bake @ 220°C (420°F) for 20 minutes

 

Hope you enjoy it!

Rachel