Get baking with Tannie Maria and Tony Jackman

Tannie Maria is more technical at it. Your Food Editor has a more laissez-faire approach – take a basic “pot brood” recipe, fling something else in, and see how it turns out.

Let’s start with Tannie Maria, because your Food Editor always stands back for a lady, especially two. As always with a Tannie Maria recipe, there’s a story attached to it to do with our fictional heroine’s agony aunt column for the Klein Karoo Gazette in Ladismith.

Tannie Maria’s Karoo Farm Bread

(Makes 1 loaf)

“Karel the mechanic is a brave man,” Tannie Maria writes. “When he first wrote to me, he wasn’t afraid to admit how difficult it is to boil an egg. I gave him an egg recipe, and then when things developed with his girlfriend, I gave him this bread recipe to impress her at a braai. It really is very easy to make.”

Ingredients

4½ cups (600g) brown bread flour

1 Tbsp salt

10g instant dried yeast

1 cup oats

½ cup sunflower seeds, plus extra for topping

¼ cup molasses

1 Tbsp sunflower oil

2½ cups lukewarm water

1 cup All-Bran flakes

Method

Grease a 12 × 25 cm loaf tin.

Sift the flour (adding back the bran that is caught in the sieve) and mix in the salt, yeast, oats and sunflower seeds.

Add the molasses, oil and water and stir well. Now add the All-Bran flakes and mix well.

Spoon the batter into the greased tin and put in a warm place to rise for about 30 minutes.

Preheat your oven to 220ºC.

Sprinkle the top with a few more sunflower seeds and bake for 40-45 minutes.

Remove from the tin and cool on a wire rack before slicing.

Notes

This bread stays fresh for up to a week.

It is delicious with farm butter and homemade apricot jam or thick slices of cheese.

Tony’s roasted tomato braai bread

(Makes 1 pot brood)

This is one of my favourite braai breads. The tomatoes and the onion are roasted in the oven first, then incorporated into the dough before being baked in a pot alongside hot coals.

Ingredients

2 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

2 large ripe tomatoes, chopped

1 large white onion, chopped

Salt and pepper, to taste

1kg white bread wheat flour

1 x 10g packet instant yeast

4 tsp sugar

1 tsp salt

2 cups lukewarm water and a little more, if necessary

Extra-virgin olive oil, to grease the pot

Method

Preheat the oven to 220ºC.

Grease a medium roasting pan with 2 Tbsp olive oil. Place the chopped tomatoes and onion cut-side down in the oil and season with salt and pepper. Roast them for one hour or more until they’re golden and soft. Remove the pan from the oven, set it aside and turn off the heat. Remember to close the oven door so that you can prove the dough in the warm oven later. If the oven is cool when it’s time to prove the dough, reheat the oven and turn it off again.

Sift the flour into a large mixing bowl. Add the yeast and sugar and use a wooden spoon to stir it very well. Only stir in the 1 tsp salt after this, so that it does not neutralise the yeast.

Add the lukewarm water a little at a time and mix the dough until it is all combined.

Work the roasted tomatoes and onion into the dough with your hands. Add the olive oil and the juices left over in the pan (in which you roasted the tomatoes and onion) and knead that into the dough, folding and kneading until it is a nice plump ball that is not too sticky. Keep kneading for five minutes. Work in a little more flour if the dough is too sticky or a little more water if it’s too dry.

Leave the ball of dough in the bowl, cover it with a slightly damp tea towel and put it in the oven for 20 minutes. While you’re waiting for the dough to prove, grease a heavy-bottomed cast-iron oven (or bread) pot with some olive oil.

Remove the dough from the oven and knead it again for 1-2 minutes, folding and turning. Place the dough in the centre of the greased pot, cover it again with a damp tea towel, and place it in the centre of the middle rack in the oven. Close the door and leave the dough in the warmth for its second rise for 40 minutes.

Check that you have braai coals. After the dough has finished proving, place the pot containing the dough in the braai and immediately arrange hot coals all around the base and on top of it. Keep replenishing the coals at the base and on the lid for 1 hour.

The ultimate food pairing for this bread? None other than tomato bredie; what else? DM