Great Bloggers Bake Off Week 2 – Grainy Mustard and Beer Loaf

Well I wasn't exactly star baker with my efforts for week one of the Great Bloggers Bake Off, but that hasn't deterred me.

Week two's theme is bread which absolutely petrified me until  Helen Hollywood and Jenny Berry (again possibly not their real names) said that you were allowed to use a breadmaker. Hallelujah!

I've a couple of books full of breadmaker recipes which I tend to ignore in favour of a standard wholemeal loaf which I generally make as our "daily bread". It's fascinating to see just how many thing you can make with your breadmaker and I was somewhat spoilt for choice as to what to make. Eventually I settled on a recipe for Grainy Mustard and Beer Loaf from Bread Machine
by Jennie Shapter (who seems to have written a fair few books of bread machine recipes!) The inspiration for doing this came from the fact that Mr C and I spent a whole evening last week bottling his latest batch of home brew and I thought it would be a great idea to use some of this in my bread.

So here's what you need to make a medium sized loaf.

• 280ml flat beer
• 15ml vegetable oil
• 3 tbsp wholegrain mustard
• 350g strong white bread flour
• 150g wholemeal bread flour
• 1 1/2 tbsp skimmed milk powder
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp granulated sugar
• 1 tsp dried yeast

Depending on your breadmachine you may be asked to place the ingredient in a slightly different order – it's all to do with whether you put in the wet or dry ingredients first. All to do with how things react together, but even with a B in A-level chemistry I have to admit to not fully understanding why, especially as it all just gets mixed together!

We put in our liquids first so the beer and oil went into the pan to start with. Then I added the wholegrain mustard before covering all the liquid with the two types of flour. The milk powder, salt and sugar were then placed in three different corners of the pan (again – it's all to do with the chemistry!) and finally the yeast was placed in a small well in the middle of the flour.

And it's as easy as that.

I just used the "normal" setting on my bread machine and after about three and a half hours I turned this out.

Yes – I really do need some better lighting in my kitchen for food photography!

It wasn't as tall as I had expected, especially since the recipe contained much more flour than I use in my daily loaf recipe, yet it was the same size when baked.

Slicing into the loaf it appeared to be baked correctly and, possibly most importantly, it also looked like the photograph in the book. When sliced you could really smell the mustard in there, but it was harder to differentiate the beer smell from the slightly yeasty smell that freshly baked bread has anyway.

The whole family enjoyed it for supper one evening with a selection of cheese, ham, pork pie and pickle and it was delicious. The mustard wasn't all that obvious in there – proved by the fact that three year old Little Miss C ate it without any complaints. It worked really well with all the cheese in particular and it was nice to have something a little bit different to a normal loaf. There was also something special about being able to use Mr C's homebrew in there.

I'm joining in with the Great Bloggers Bake Off that is being hosted by Helen Hollywood and Jenny Berry (possibly not their real names…) Each week the aim is to blog your recipe to fit in with that week's Great British Bake Off theme and Berry and Hollywood (again possibly not the real ones…) will choose a star baker. It's not a title I'm expecting to win, but you never know!

If you want to see what everyone else has been baking then check out the Great Bloggers Bake Off pinterest board.