A Beggar's Banquet: Poppy seed and mozzarella twist bread

Another weekend, another bread. I am really getting in to this bread baking malarkey now and I'm loving trying different flavours to see what works together. This week I decided to do another twisted crown bread, a bit like the Italian Brioche Couronne one, but this time using poppy seeds and stringy buffalo mozzarella cheese and it turned out really well. The poppy seeds have a nice nutty taste and the mozzarella goes nice and gooey if you eat it when it is still warm then a bit of added parmesan bumps up the cheesiness. I think I could have added some slow fried red onions as well to this one so I might try that the next time... This bread is pretty easy to make and you don't have to wait hours for it to prove (a mere half an hour my friend!) so its a good one if you are a bit tight on time. It is also made with stuff you may already have in the cupboard, aside from the mozzarella, and the ingredients are all cheap to buy so its a good one if you're a bit short of cash.

We ate ours with some nice Thai spice marinated salmon and salad grown by yours truly - pretty proud of my first veg growing attempts actually and I've taken a few pics of the garden. I say garden its more of a yard or 'courtyard garden' as I like to say. When we first moved here I was a bit dubious of how much I would be able to grow there but I think what I have planted has done really well so far - I'm still waiting to see how my Jack Lantern pumpkin, carrots and climbing beans do through the summer so we'll have to see!

Ingredients

500g strong white bread flour

100g wholemeal flour

Pinch salt

7g packet fast action dried yeast

2 tbsp honey

350ml lukewarm water

Olive oil

About 3-4 tbsp poppy seeds

2 balls buffalo mozzarella

Parmesan cheese

Mix the 2 flours, the yeast and the salt together in a large mixing bowl or the bowl of an electric mixer. Add the water and mix together until you get a rough dough. Push a dent into the centre of the dough and add the honey into it then fold the dough in onto the honey. Knead for about 10 minutes on a floured work surface or 5 minutes with the dough hook on an electric mixer. The dough is ready when it springs back if you prod it with your finger.

On a clean floured work surface roll the dough out into a flat long rectangle (about 40cm by 20-25cm though it doesn't need to be exact) so the long side is towards you. Brush the top with olive oil then evenly sprinkle over the poppy seeds. Tear up the mozzarella and dot the pieces across the dough. Grate some parmesan over that then roll the dough up towards you, trying to keep it tight, to make a long sausage.

Squash the sausage down slightly then cut in half lengthways. Turn so the open filling is facing upwards then twist the two pieces together - turn one hand clockwise, the other anti-clockwise. Try to do this quite quickly as dawdling may cause the filling to fall out! Join the 2 ends and squash together to create a ring.

Lightly oil a baking tray then transfer the dough ring to that. Now brush or spray the top of the dough with olive oil and cover with cling film and a tea towel. Leave somewhere warm to rise for 30 minutes. Now set the oven to preheat at 200°C. Put a deep baking tray in the bottom of the oven to heat up - you add a cup of water to this when the bread goes in the oven to create steam to give it a nice crust and help it to rise.

Uncover the bread and sprinkle with some more poppy seeds and some grated parmesan then put in the oven for about 30 minutes (don't forget to add a cup of cold water or a handful of ice cubes to the tray in the bottom for steam). After the 30 minutes tap the bread on the bottom and if it sounds hollow it is ready.

I think this bread would be really nice with some homemade soup - might have to make it again if my pumpkins are a success!