To be brutally honest, weekday breakfasts are normally just fuel for the day ahead. Never rubbish, but washed down by coffee that is always too hot or too cold and slotted in between all the pre-work chores, it's generally a rushed affair.
It's a far cry from the primary school days when I got up at stupid o'clock, made the kids' packed lunches, checked the homework, packed the PE kit, signed the reading record and then sat down en famille for bowls of cereal. Even when they moved up to secondary school, there were still lunches to be packed, but these days the only one taking lunch with them is Neil.
Weekends on the other hand are a different thing altogether; a time for treats and, more often than not, experimentation. There are all the usual suspects, served up in succession; pancakes, waffles, muffins, a fry up, omelettes and then there are the experiments. These are generally variations of baked goods, adding new flavours and textures to family favourites and classics.
Unusually for me, I have had a bread free week, so by Friday night the cravings had set in and in anticipation of a leisurely Saturday morning breakfast, I got to work.
September is upon us and with it the first whiff of Autumn, so the first things that came to mind were fruit and spice, both wonderfully evocative of the coming season. Close your eyes and you can almost smell the apple and clove crumble, Christmas cake, chutneys, bramble vinegar and damson gin. There will be apple recipes coming up shortly, so I have opted for something a little more exotic. This is a light, almost cakey (is that a word? If not it should be) loaf, subtly flavoured with cardamom and orange.
375g bread flour
125g
rice flour
1
egg
60g
butter
100g
Orange sugar (grate the zest of 2 oranges or 4 mandarins, add to a kilo of sugar and store in an airtight jar)
Zest of 1 orange
The seeds from 3
cardamom pods
250ml
milk
1 tsp dried yeast
1 tsp salt
1 tblsp marmalade, warmed
Make sure all the ingredients are at room temperature and put them all, except the marmalade, into a food processor or use a food mixer fitted with a dough hook.
Beat thoroughly, it should be smooth and rather sticky.
Cover and leave to prove for at least an hour, I left mine overnight.
Pre-heat the oven to 190ºC
Generously grease a 1lb loaf tin and pour in the dough.
Place in the oven - no, I haven't missed anything out, I didn't give it a second proving - and bake for 30 minutes. Remove from the oven, turn down the temperature to 175ºC and brush the top of the loaf with the warmed marmalade. Return the tin to the oven for another 20 minutes.
Carefully take the loaf out of the tin - you should be able to lift it out quite easily, but it will be HOT - and leave to cool on a wire rack.
Serve warm, not hot, with lashings of butter. I found a 2 year old jar of peach and rose jam in the cupboard, which added to the doughy, buttery joy.
© Netherton Foundry Shropshire 2017
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