Grape Bread and Chestnut Purée

Slightly sweetened and only a little butter enriched bread makes an ideal match to a warm cup of coffee on a lazy weekend afternoon, and topped off with some sweetened chestnut purée spread it’s addictive.

If you can’t manage to work your way through an entire loaf, sandwich together slices of the bread with chestnut purée spread, arrange in a casserole dish. Whisk 3 eggs with 25 g sugar until tripled in volume, stir in 500 ml milk, pour over the bread, leave it to rest for 30 minutes, bake at 180°C until the top is golden and the custard set, best bread and butter pudding ever.

Grape & thyme bread

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The night before
2 Tbsp Raw sugar
300 ml Warm water
100 g Flour
1 tsp yeast


Dissolve the sugar in the warm water then stir in the yeast, leave it to stand for 10 minutes, until the yeast has bloomed. Add the flour and mix thoroughly. Cover with cling-film and leave overnight.

The morning after
50 g Butter, melted
25 g Raw sugar
400 g Flour
12 g Salt
Grapes, about 18
Thyme, fresh leaves
Raw sugar for sprinkling
Butter for brushing


Mix together the dry ingredients, add the flour mixture and butter to the yeast, which should be bubbly and aromatic, stir together and form a rough ball of dough, cover and leave it to rest for 5-10 minutes.

Tip the dough on to the bench and knead until smooth and elastic, about 15 minutes, letting it rest every couple of minutes while kneading helps the flour hydrate and will speed up the process. My preferred method for kneading, at the moment, is to roll the dough out into a log shape, fold in half and repeat. This seems to speed up the kneading process and results in some seriously fluffy bread.

Place the dough in a bowl and cover, leave it to rise in a warm spot for about an hour or until it has doubled in size.

Knock back the dough and leave it for another hour to double in size.


On a lined baking tray, shape the dough by forming it into an elongated rectangle tucking the ends under, use your fingertips to dimple and push out the dough. Push in the grapes into a regular pattern. Cover and leave it for about 30 minutes to rise.

Pre-heat the oven to 220°C.


Brush the dough with melted butter and sprinkle over thyme leaves and raw sugar.


Bake for 40 minutes in the top third of the oven, when cooked the bread should sound hollow when tapped on the underside. Remove from the oven and cover with a clean tea towel, leave it cool for a while, if you can, before tucking in.

Chestnut purée spread

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This is pretty simple and well you could go the extra step and roast/poach fresh chestnuts but they’re not always readily available, but I find a can of plain chestnut purée does the trick.

440 g Chestnut purée
200 ml Water
100 g Sugar
1 tsp Vanilla paste
Decent pinch of salt


Place a pan over a medium heat and add the sugar, leave it to dissolve and slowly caramelise, be careful not to burn the sugar. Add the water to the pan, it will spit and hiss a little so add with caution. When the caramelised sugar has dissolved stir in the vanilla.

Break up the Chestnut purée in a bowl, and little by little whisk in the sugar syrup to form a thick paste, you may not need it all. Taste and season with salt. I like to pass it through a sieve to get a perfectly smooth paste.


It should store in a sealed container in the fridge for a couple of weeks, if it lasts that long!

Caramel Corn - aka homemade Cracker Jack

A good movie night just isn’t the same without some form of snack, and nothing really beats buttery salty popcorn... Well almost nothing, Cracker Jacks do, salty caramel covered popped corn studded with roasted peanuts, far too moreish, an I can’t believe I finished the whole bowl, kind of food, but you should indulge now and then. I found this recipe on Brown Eyed Baker, and it’s pretty close to what I remember of the caramel corn in a box with a prize.

I really recommend you roast your own peanuts, so you can control how salty they are, but store bought roasted peanuts are good too.

100 grams of popped corn (about 10 cups popped)
1 cup Brown Sugar
1/4 cup Glucose syrup
85 grams unsalted butter (6 tablespoons), melted
1 cup of roasted lightly salted peanuts
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 tablespoons water
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1. Preheat Oven to 120ºC.
2. Pop the corn and put it in a very lightly greased bowl, set aside.
3. In a small pan whisk together the brown sugar, glucose syrup, butter, salt, and water. Simmer, stirring often, until the mixture reaches 120ºC (firm/hard ball stage)
4. Remove from the heat, whisk in the vanilla and baking soda.
5. Using a rubber spatula, fold the caramel into the popcorn until all of popped corn is coated, then stir in the roasted peanuts.
6. Spread the mixture on to a lined baking tray and bake for 1 hour, stirring every 20 minutes.
   
7. Remove from the oven and let it cool on a wire rack for half an hour.
8. Gently break up the popcorn. It will keep for about 5 days in a airtight container.

Salted Caramel Peanuts

These are super simple and great tasting.

Put into a pot over a medium heat about 1 cup of raw peanuts, 1/2 cup of water and 1/2 cup of sugar.

Let it simmer until the liquid caramelizes (stirring occasionally, too much stirring will cause crystals to form which can seize the caramel), be careful near the end as there is a fine line between burnt sugar and a nice dark caramel.

Sprinkle into the pot about 1/2 tsp of salt, pour onto a tray lined with baking paper and spread out to a single layer.

When cooled slightly, sprinkle over salt (if it's too hot the salt with dissolve in to the caramel).

When completely cool, break into individual nuts.

Should store well for about a week, but they wont last that long.