Squeaky Cheese Bread for Your Picnic

What a lot of eagle-eyed readers there are. I feel suitably chastised following my display of ignorance last week when I described my “teaming bees” rather than “teeming bees” which resulted in many telling us about it. We do our best to catch the typos knowing that we’ll hear about it if we stray too far. Keep it up!

The proximity of Foster’s Mill in Swaffham (home to Prior’s Flour) with its neighbouring smock tower mill is unique in the UK. Listed as buildings of national importance, there is a threat to them as is increasingly common throughout the UK in the search for locations for more housing. The local plan for the area has earmarked the pocket of land east of Foster’s Mill which at the moment is the only direction from which the best unhindered wind comes – pretty important for a working windmill. Naturally Jon at Foster’s Mill is pretty worried about the impact on the local environment and his ability to mill. He has much more about it on his blog.

We really like to hear about dedicated people doing good things and using the bread and baking to achieve them and hope you will find them interesting too – maybe you’ll want to get involved. If you know of someone doing something special through bread please let us know and we’ll tell everyone. It can be very short and simple, but a good photo will help.

Better Health Bakery is an artisan bakery based in East London, part of Hackney mental health charity, the Centre for Better Health. As a social enterprise we provide trainee placements to adults recovering from mental ill health. Find out all about them at their website.

This week, Vanessa has come up with a recipe that is delicious and is something to smile about.

Recipe: Halloumi and Herb Loaf

Last week, my mouth started watering at the thought of salty Halloumi (or squeaky) cheese and decided to bake a loaf studded with chunks of it along with a big handful of fresh herbs which compliment it really well. I wrapped the cheese in a soft, white dough then coiled it to form a spiralled loaf and popped it in a Pullman tin to hold the bread in shape during the final prove and baking. The finished loaf looked really impressive and tasted fabulous. We ate slices of warm Halloumi and herb bread with tomato soup for tea, and I’m planning on making this again later in the year to take on summer picnics.

I’ve reduced the salt slightly in this recipe to 8g to accommodate the extra salt in the cheese. It is worth tasting your cheese as various brands have different salt levels.

Halloumi works well in the bread as during the process of making it, it is cooked in the whey which changes the proteins so that it doesn’t melt in the way that most others do, making it ideal to put through the loaf.

Vanessa Kimbell runs the Sourdough School, Northampton

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Pullman Bread Pan | £23.23

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Extra-Virgin Olive Oil | £7.88

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Organic Instant Yeast | £0.50

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