I have been sitting on these brunch with PZ pictures for what… months now? And I don’t know why, I think part of it might have to do with what can you say when you have a friend who comes to your house with a freshly baked loaf of super seedy bread and then helps you prepare brunch except #blessed?
But more seriously, I take my brunch very seriously.
Just this past weekend as I was stumbling out the door on Saturday morning for a waffles and ice-cream brunch, Mel, my apartment mate was all:
Mel: Do you brunch every weekend?
Me: *pause* Yes?
Mel: That’s cool.
Me: *in my head* That’s expensive.
Which is why, when the Singapore Martha Stewart (I need a shortform of this nickname) volunteered to bake bread to anchor Sunday brunch at my place, I + my flatmates + one (one of their boyfriends, that is) were enthusiastic about a) being cheap and b) eating some high quality stuff.
Here is PZ actually arranging the smoked salmon in a pleasing way, so as to enhance the taste.
We, the barbarians that we are, were happy to eat it off the foil it came on. But you know, this was cool too.
PZ aims to not buy bread in the shops anymore and instead wants to shift to only consuming the bread that she makes. I’m not sure why she wants to do this. Could it be because the bread we buy from the shops is full of weird additives that are giving us cancer? Possibly. Could it be because the bread she bakes is ludicrously tasty? More probably.
I prepared a creme fraiche lemon dill dip which you see here and eggs en cocotte. And of course we had lots of coffee and fresh blueberries. These pictures solely exist to torment you.
And remind me of a lazy Sunday that I want to get back to.
Oh! PZ kindly shared the recipe for the bread that she made (adapted from here):
Makes 1 loaf
Soaker
48g whole wheat flour
28g dark rye flour
100g water
1g of salt
64g flaxseed
Starter
7g rye mother starter (100% hydration)
71g dark rye flour
71g water
Final
43g dark rye flour
48g bread flour
62g water
2g instant yeast
4g salt
64g toasted sesame seeds
1 egg white (for the egg wash)
14g of mixed sesame seeds and flaxseeds, for the topping
Prep the soaker and starter a day before you bake the bread.
Day 1
In the morning, stir the soaker ingredients, cover and let it sit at room temperature till evening. Repeat with the starter ingredients in a separate bowl.
In the evening, mix the soaker and starter together with the final dough’s ingredients.
Knead for 1 to 2 minutes. Knead more vigorously for 4 minutes, and let it rest for 5 minutes.
Knead 1 more minute, and the dough should be somewhat sticky.
Place it in an oiled bowl, cover with cling wrap and keep it in the fridge overnight.
Day 2
Take out the dough and let it sit at room temperature for 2 hours.
Stretch and fold the dough to shape it, and place the dough seam-side down.
Brush the exterior with egg white and roll the dough in the mixed seeds for topping.
Transfer the dough into the loaf pan and spray some olive oil on it. Cover and let it proof for 45 to 60 minutes, till it’s 150% in size.
Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 240C.
Place a ramekin of water on the bottom of the oven and position the rack in the middle.
When the dough is ready after proofing, bake at 240C for 10 minutes, then 220C for another 10 minutes, and 180C for the last 10 minutes. Let the bread cool completely before slicing.
*Not pictured: An impromptu blueberry crisp we made out of leftover blueberries which we served with vanilla Haagen-Dazs ice-cream. The pictures were too ugly to share and I didn’t really want to mess with the beauty above.
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