Pitlochrie Cottages Recipes

Welcome to Pitlochrie Cottages recipes. Here is Ivana’s winning recipe for Rye Bread.

This bread is relatively easy to make and you need time to rest the dough. I suggest a few tweaks to the recipe below the method.

Ingredients

• 1.5 cups rye flour
• 1.5 cups cake or white bread flour
• ¼ teaspoon instant yeast
• 1.5 teaspoons salt
• 1.5 cups of warm water
• Extra flour or mielie meal as needed

Method

Mix the dry ingredients together in a bowl and add the water to make a sticky dough. Cover the bowl with a damp cloth or piece of plastic that you attach with an elastic band to the top of the bowl. Let the mixture rest at warm room temperature for 18 – 24 hours, longer if it’s cold. You want to see lots of bubbles on the surface of the dough.

First fold

Flour the surface of your counter well and flour your hands. Empty the dough onto the surface. It should be stringy and sticky. Quickly lift the outside edge of the dough inwards towards the centre to make a round shape, like you would with sour dough. You will be folding the dough over to the centre.

Put baking paper on a baking tray and cover with flour. Place the folded dough seam side down on the tray and cover the top with flour. Make sure you have floured your hands. Place a tea cloth over the dough and let it rise again for 2 hours. You want it to have doubled in size.

Preheat your oven 30 minutes before you bake the bread and put your oven on gas mark 8, which is about 240 C. Take a 5 litre oven-proof pot and place it on the lower rack in your oven. You want the pot to get hot with the oven.

When the dough is ready, take your pot out the oven and put your dough in it with the baking paper. It doesn’t matter if it is a messy blob because it will come together in the bake. Put the lid on the pot and bake for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes take the lid off the pot and bake for another 15 to 30 minutes or longer, depending on your bread. When your bread is ready, remove from the oven and leave it on a wire rack to cool. Enjoy with lots of butter.

Tweaks

When I tried the recipe, my loaf had a fantastic crust but the crumb was a little dense. I decided the next time I make it I am going to try a double fold. This process will trap more air into the dough and make it lighter. The process will mean leaving the dough for 12 hours and then fold. Another 6 – 12 hours and then another fold, instead of the full 18 to 23 hours. Then the usual 2 hours and then bake. Watch this space for updates!

Welcome to Pitlochrie Cottages recipes. Here is our recipe for Pitlochrie Jake’s Kitke.

During lockdown, we were lucky to have Jake home for an extended period although he kept on with his training for the Olympics. With all the family in the kitchen, Jake started making Kitke and now has perfected the recipe for this sweetly delicious sharing bread.

Ingredients

• 4 cups cake flour
• 5ml salt
• 60ml sugar
• 1 packet instant yeast
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 3 eggs
• About 1 cup lukewarm water Large handful of sesame seeds

Method

Mix all the dry ingredients together (keep back about a third of the sesame seeds for baking) and then rub in the butter until it looks like fine breadcrumbs. Add two eggs and the lukewarm water and mix into a dough. You can use the mixer with a dough hook attachment or do this by hand. Knead the bread for about 10 minutes by hand or 5 minutes with a mixer. I always do a little hand kneading even if I have used the mixer. The dough should be soft and elastic.

Place kneaded dough in oiled bowl and cover with plastic or damp dishcloth until it has doubled in size. Take the dough out and divide into two. Each half is then separated into three or four pieces which you gently roll into sausages. Plait the sausages to make two loaves.

Place the plaited loaves on baking trays, cover with plastic and allow to rise until double in size. The plastic does not have to be underneath the tray. Once the loaves have doubled in size, brush with the beaten egg and sprinkle the remainder of the sesame seeds on the loaves. Bake in a preheated oven at 180 C or gas mark 5/6 for 20 – 25 minutes. When it looks ready check underneath the loaves and flip and bake some more if needed. Enjoy with thick butter. This recipe is also perfect for buns and rolls.

Welcome to Pitlochrie Cottages recipes. Here is our recipe for Pitlochrie Matt’s Ciabatta.

Like his father, Matt is a bread master. He introduced us to sour dough and played with these concepts to produce the best ciabatta we have ever had. The making is time consuming, but the results are extraordinary. You can also add flavours to the bread such as chillies, garlic, thyme, olives etc. Do this during the first fold.

Starter

• 500g water
• 500g strong flour (any will do – cake, white bread or brown)
• Half a teaspoon yeast

In mixer bowl, put in water, then flour and then yeast. Mix by hand using the dough hook in your hand. Will be runny. Place bowl in mixer, and using dough hook, mix on slow first, and then medium. Aim is to mix it well and have no unmixed flour. Cover bowl with plastic wrap (we reuse plastic and elastic band for this purpose). Leave at room temp overnight. Next morning the mixture should be bubbly and full.

Dough Processing

• 500g water
• 700g flour
• 3 tsp salt (according to your palate – may want more)

Uncover bowl. Add 500g water, 700g flour, 3-4 tsp salt in that order. Again mix by hand with dough hook to ensure all flour mixes in and you get anything on the sides. Then put bowl back in mixer and mix on slow, and then highish. Leave hook in bowl, cover with plastic again and leave for 30 minutes at room temp to autolyse. After 30 minutes put back in mixer and mix on slow until you have a smooth mixture – will still have what looks like small lumps so doesn’t have to be super-smooth. Prepare your container.

Dough Preparation

Use a large square plastic container, approx. 35 cm square, or two plastic cake containers if you decide to add flavour to half the dough (you can also use a plastic cake container for the whole lot). Take olive oil and wet the bottom and sides of your container completely. Use your olive oiled hand and rub the extra olive oil on your surface – I use a stainless steel surface.

Wet your surface completely with water. Wet your hands with water – any touching of the dough must be done with wet hands because it is super sticky. With wet hands loosen the dough from the bowl and pour onto wet surface. You will be folding the dough one end to the other end like you would with sour dough. Do at least 6 folds, maybe more, changing from north to south folds, and east to west folds. Using a dough paddle that you have wet with water, scoop the dough into your container. Cover top of container with plastic and leave for about 40 to 50 minutes depending on temp. If it is cold leave it longer, warm, shorter.

First Fold

Uncover dough – you should notice the bubbles are forming. Wet hands. Fold in the container. Do four to six folds, north south, east west. Easiest is to put your hands in the middle of and under the dough and lift up so the two ends fall together and place down gently. Remember you are trapping air, so the more the better. Cover container with plastic and leave for another 40 to 50 minutes depending on temp.

Second Fold

Repeat.

Third Fold

Repeat.

Fourth Fold

Repeat. You will now see the dough comes together and feels light and airy – may already have on an earlier fold.

Preparation for baking loaves

Prepare two roasting dishes with a light dusting of flour and cut four rectangles of baking paper that will sit in the roasting dishes – you will place the dough into these baking paper rectangles. Flour your surface well. Flour hands and dough paddle. Uncover plastic container and turn upside down above your surface so dough falls out onto floured surface. Quickly shape into a square using dough paddle, and start cutting your loaves decisively with the paddle.

Place each loaf into the baking paper in the roasting pan once cut. Place pans on surface and use something to keep a draped soft blanket off them – I use coffee tins. Drape the blanket over the loaves so they are not touching the dough but loaves are completely covered and leave for 30 minutes. Put your oven on high – mine is gas, so I turn it to gas mark 8 – not sure what this is in c’s or f’s. Place two small loaf tins with water at the bottom of your ovens. Place two baking trays in the ovens on the lowest wracks.

Bake loaves

You will need someone to help you place the loaves in their baking paper on the hot trays so that you don’t squish them. Take hot trays out oven and transfer loaves in baking paper onto hot trays – two loaves per tray. Place in oven on lowest wrack. Turn oven down from gas mark 8 to 7. Bake for 27-30 minutes. Check loaves and bottoms. Will probably need to flip loaves and bake bottoms for a further 6 minutes. Take out oven and cool. Prepare yourself for heaven with butter!

Welcome to Pitlochrie Cottages recipes. Here is our recipe for Pitlochrie Joe’s all-purpose white bread.

Our family loves bread, we love making bread, we love experimenting with different types and boy, do we love eating it. Bread making is an art and it is important to get to know the feel of dough. It becomes an instinctual relationship when the look and feel of your dough will tell you how the bread will be. Breaking bread together is an important ritual for us and here are some of our favourites.

Joe is the original master bread-maker. His strength in kneading produces the best, pliable dough and of course, the most delicious breads. Here is his easy white, that can be used for bread, focaccia, pizzas, and rolls. Remember if you want a sweeter bread, just add extra sugar.

Ingredients

• 4 cups white bread flour (substitute with cake flour if you want)
• 1 sachet instant yeast
• 5ml salt
• 10ml sugar
• 100 ml canola oil
• About 350ml lukewarm water
• 1 beaten egg for glazing if you like

Method

In a large mixing bowl add the flour, yeast and salt together. Add the oil. Dissolve the sugar in the water and add to the mixture. Mix it all together and cover with a damp cloth and let it stand for 10 to 20 minutes (to autolyse the dough).

Now knead well. You can do the initial knead using a mixer with dough hook. If you are doing this by hand, start in the mixing bowl and when the dough has come together properly, transfer to a lightly floured flat surface. You may find that you need to add more water, as you don’t want the dough too stiff. Knead until the dough is smooth and stretchy, this will take about 10 minutes if kneading by hand and 5 if using a mixer.

Lightly oil the bowl and put the dough inside. Cover with a damp cloth or sheet of plastic, I prefer to use plastic which I secure with an elastic band. Set this aside in a warm spot and let it rise to double its size. Remember the temperature of the room will affect the rising time – when it’s cold it will take longer.

Once it has doubled in size turn it out onto a lightly floured surface, shape the loaf and set it on a baking tray (you can put it in a loaf tin; use this dough for any shape you want – plaits, rolls, buns etc), cover again with the plastic and wait for it to nearly double in size.

Bake

Glaze with egg if you like and bake in a preheated oven at 180 degrees/gas mark 5/6 for about 20 to 25 minutes. If you think it is ready, turn it over and check that it is cooked underneath. If still undercooked return to the oven upside down for a few more minutes. We like a nicely caramelised crust. Remove from the oven and eat with copious amounts of butter.

You can flavour your loaf however you want – garlic, herbs, peppers, cheese etc. Remember, if you are adding a wettish ingredient, reduce your water. You will add these ingredients to the flour before adding your oil and water.