Cranberry Basil Bread

This lovely soft and fragrant loaf is based on Dan Lepard’s recipe for Tomato Bread on the Guardian, which I previously made here and is one of my favourite soft breads. The fresh basil leaves in the bread give it a delicious fragrance and matches the dried cranberries and orange jam in the bread with a light savoury note. The softness of the loaf comes from the addition of yoghurt and olive oil, which were also present in the original tomato bread.

Also, this is the first loaf I’ve posted after getting a banneton and a lame; both of which gave my bread a really lovely look and shape. Here’s the sliced bread!

Timeline: Two/three folds with 10min intervals, first rise 1 hour, second rise 1 hour.

Ingredients:

• 50g yoghurt
• 20g orange jam
• 12g olive oil
• 200g bread flour
• 3g salt
• 1/2 tsp instant yeast
• 75g water
• 50g cranberries
• 14 fresh basil leaves (chopped)

Instructions:

1. Mix the yoghurt, jam and olive oil. Add the flour, salt and yeast, mixing in 65g of water. Mix until well combined, adding the rest of the water gradually if the dough is too dry.
2. Leave to rest for 10min. Add the cranberries and chopped basil, stretch and fold the dough so these are well mixed in.
3. Repeat the 10min rest and quick stretching/kneading once or twice more.
4. Leave for the first rise of ~1 hour, or when the dough has roughly doubled in size.
5. Turn the dough out on a lightly floured surface, fold into a boule, then leave to rise in a floured banneton for ~1 hour. This dough can also rise on a baking sheet (the dough is more on the medium-stiff consistency).
6. Bake in a preheated oven at 150-175 deg celsius, until the internal temperature is at least 190 deg Fahrenheit. This took 25-30min, I baked the loaf on a baking tray which was not preheated, but covered the loaf for the first 10min.