Yet another bread-related experiment - I wanted to try baking a loaf of bread using plain natural yoghurt as the main liquid ingredient.
It's a really simple bread recipe - just dry bread yeast, 450g of plain flour, 50g of butter and 500g of natural yoghurt - no water at all.
I put these ingredients in a bowl (melting the butter first) and mixed them thoroughly into a dough using a knife, then kneaded a little with the dough hooks on my electric whisk.
It's quite a wet, sticky dough, so would be difficult to knead by hand, but this recipe doesn't call for extensive kneading anyway - it could just be mixed thoroughly with the knife.
After a couple of hours in a warm place, it had more than doubled in size. I turned it out onto an oiled tray, shaping it only lightly into a rough heap, then I baked it in the oven at 180C for half an hour (quite a long cooking time, but necessary with a dough this moist)
I put a metal tray of hot water on the floor of the oven to make steam - this helps to form a crisp, crunchy crust..
The result was a rustic-style loaf with a beautifully crunchy crust and an almost cheesy dairy aroma.
The Taste Test
I ate a slice with butter and blackcurrant jam - the bread has a light, crumbly almost cake-like texture and a rich, slightly tangy flavour.
The butter and yoghurt make this a really tasty loaf and it lends itself well to eating with jam or other sweet toppings.
I declare this experiment a genuine success!
