Bready or Not, It's Medieval Week!

That god awful title is mostly because my partner has asked if I can stop with the puns. Well as per usual, when your partner asks you to do something like that you obviously do the exact opposite! I smile whenever I see that title, because it's so terrible, he will hate it. 

So I'm back in the world of baking and this time making Medieval style loaves. Bread was the main carb in Medieval Europe, which is why such a big deal is made about the harvest during that time. A poor harvest meant that people would starve, because the usual wheat based bread they ate wasn't available. Now when I say wheat, it does vary quite considerably whether you got a pure, white wheat loaf or if you got a bread made out of barley, rye and beans! 

Surprise, surprise, your rich, wealthy lord got the finest, whitest bread money could buy! Wheat requires incredibly good soil and is very labour intensive to produce, so only the wealthy could afford this. It was also believed that the digestive systems of the lords and ladies would not have been up for handling the brown bread of its day. Peasants would eat bread often made from a mix of grains, wheat, barley and rye. During harder times they would even make loaves from beans, peas and even acorns. The quality varied massively, from the best bread being pandemain, where the white flour had been sifted two to three times to the very lowest quality, horse bread, so named because it was believed to only be fit for horses to eat. 

For this reason, I decided this time to make two types of loaves. A Pandemain and what would probably be considered at the time a cocket. My lovely partner did go to the supermarket for me to get some rye flour - maybe I should stop with the puns - but he could only find white rye flour. Still, if we're assuming that during our peasanty meals we've had a pretty good year for the wheat harvest and our veggie patch, then maybe we would have celebrated with a whiter loaf! I did find the rye flour made a heartier, slightly denser loaf, but if you want to be truly authentic then try to get wholemeal rye flour. 

Pandemain Bread

Ingredients

• 250g strong white bread flour
• 200ml of warm water
• 1 packet of instant yeast
• 1 tsp of honey
• 1 tsp of salt

Method

1. Stir the tsp of honey into the warm water and mix in the yeast. Leave to bubble on one side.
2. Measure out your flour, then sift it two times into a bowl, ensuring that any grains left in the seive are thrown away. Most modern flour is ground very finely, but you can sift it for a third time if you're feeling extra fancy!
   
   
   
3. Add the salt to the flour and stir well.
4. Pour in the water slowly, while stirring, until a ball of dough forms. If the dough is too dry add some more water.
5. Tip the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and begin to stretch the dough out. Don't whack it about too much, just keeping stretching it out and pulling it back into a ball for 10 minutes. 
6. Put the dough back into the bowl and cover with cling film, then leave in a warm place for one hour. 
7. Knead the dough again for a minute, and then shape it into a round loaf. Leave again to rise for 30 minutes.
8. Preheat the oven to 220C/190C fan.
9. Place bread in the oven and cook for 10 minutes. Then lower the temperature to 200C/180C fan, bake for 20 minutes.
10. Once the bread comes out of the oven check that it done by tapping on the bottom, if it sounds hollow you're good!

Cocket/Tourte Bread (depending on whether you're using white or wholemeal flour respectively)

This makes a larger, hardier loaf as mentioned. You don't want to be as gentle with this bread, why would you? It's for peasants! You could even throw in the extra grains from the white Pandemain bread you made!

Ingredients

• 200g rye flour
• 100g wheat flour
• 300ml of warm water
• 1 packet of instant yeast
• 1 tsp of honey
• 2 tsp of salt
• Optional: the extra grains and bits from the seived flour.

Method

1. Stir the tsp of honey into the warm water and mix in the yeast. Leave to bubble on one side.
2. Mix the flour and salt together.
3. Pour in the water slowly, while stirring, until a ball of dough forms. If the dough is too dry add some more water.
4. Tip the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead the hell out of it! Nobody wants sinful bread and as mentioned, it's for peasants, so just knock it about for ten minutes.
5. Put the dough back into the bowl and cover with cling film, then leave in a warm place for one hour. 
6. Knead the dough again for a minute, and then shape it into a round loaf. Leave again to rise for 30 minutes.
7. Preheat the oven to 220C/190C fan.
8. Place bread in the oven and cook for 10 minutes. Then lower the temperature to 200C/180C fan, bake for 30-40 minutes.