11 April 2014

Onion Bread and Mushroom Soup

First of all I would like to point out, this is NOT a sponsored post. The flour wasn't a product that I was sent or given to review, it was bought from my local village shop. I was there to post a parcel to my daughter and was having a quick look for some bread flour because I was feeling too lazy to drive to the supermarket when I came across a whole array of Wessex Mill Flour. There were lots of amazing varieties, including a delicious sounding apple and cinnamon one but, as I'm not really a sweet bread kind of person, I went with the onion bread flour. The flour cost about £2.70 for 1.5kg, I can't remember exactly how much it was because I couldn't find the receipt to check but it was a lot more than I usually spend on my bread flour. At the supermarket, the strong plain flour I usually buy is about 88p for 1.5kg. To me, this is much more like it because one of  the main reasons for making my own bread is that I can have lovely, fresh bread for a fraction of the cost of buying it at the supermarket and not only is it the best tasting, deliciously thrifty option but I can guarantee that there are no nasty additives or preservatives in it. 

Anyway, this morning, as I had run out of bread, I whipped up a batch of onion bread dough and left it to prove while I took the dogs out for a run in the field. There are quite a lot of onion bits in the flour, I guess that's a good thing although it does make it feel a bit weird when you're kneading it. It didn't rise as much as I thought it would either, particularly on the second proving but, regardless, I popped it in the oven and watched to see what would happen. 



The bread was ok but, there were a lot of very hard pieces of onion which hadn't softened during the baking process which were quite unpleasant to eat and for some reason the bread gave me heartburn, something I usually only get with shop bought bread. It did, however, have a lovely crust which was crunchy and crisp and it was great for dunking in my soup.


Despite the higher price, the heartburn and the chewy onion bits, I did like the traceability of the flour (although I didn't notice it until after I got the flour home). Although it's not ideal that the flour had so many food miles involved, at least I know where it came from and it's something I would like to see on all food. It makes it easier to support local producers in the absence of farmers markets or local producer markets. I probably won't be buying the flour again as it's a bit too expensive for me but it was really nice to try something different. Maybe I will just try adding some different ingredients to the basic bread mixture to see if I can get a similar effect.


To go with the onion bread I also whipped up a pan full of mushroom soup simply using mushrooms, cooked gently in some butter, some semi-skimmed milk and half a chicken stock cube and when the mushrooms were nicely softened, I whizzed it all up with my stick blender.

You can find the Wessex Mill flour varieties here if you want to check them out. 

Absolutely scrummy. 

2 comments:

  1. I must admit I normally just buy the box standard bread flour from the supermarket. However I do like the idea of buying more expensive flour for special breads.

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  2. I use supermarket bread flour and add things. Onions softened in butter and little cubes of cheese added when you knock back and shape the loaves is good as is chopped green and black olives with a slug of olive oil. The limits are just on what you have to hand. I made a sweet version yesterday with cinnamon, mixed spice and about 150 gm mincemeat, it is delicious.

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