Week 3: ‘My Great Irish Bake Off breakfast picnic loaf’

Bread week was a week I wasn't particularly looking forward to. We all have an element of baking we don't do a lot of and for me that was bread. Our challenge was to create a "picnic loaf" for the judges. Yes, I had to Google it too. Basically it's a loaf where you either bake the fillings within the bread or you bake the bread, hollow it out and fill it. The trick is to be able to take a slice and all the filling stay within the slice. I don't have a massively exploratory palette for savoury things so I had to think of what I enjoy most and that's breakfast, a good Irish fry up or a breakfast roll. So I was baking a breakfast in a loaf.

It was a little tribute to my days playing football with Drumcondra AFC where I was known for eating the occasional breakfast roll before a game. The late and great Tim Grace gave me endless stick over this but always in good fun.

My recipe consists of a cob loaf filled with bacon, sausage, an omelette and fried baby potatoes. I also added a salsa to go with it as a bit of fun and to show that I was thinking about my presentation. Between my Stollen Bread and my Breakfast Loaf it was a good week for me and I cannot wait for Chocolate week next week.

Congrats to Sandra on being this week's Star Baker, but we were all so disappointed to see Natasha go.

The Great Irish Bake Off airs on TV3 every Sunday at 9pm.

Breakfast Loaf
500gr strong white flower
40gr soft butter
12gr fast dried yeast
300ml luke warm water
Olive oil

Filling
600gr Sausage meat
1lb bacon medallions
6 eggs
30ml milk
Salt, pepper
500gr baby potatoes
A tbsp dried rosemary
50gr white chedder

Method

Add butter to flour in bowl

Add salt and yeast (opposite sides) and mix with spoon. Add half the water and combine by hand. Continue to add water until it comes away from sides and is soft.

Use mixture to gather the remaining scraps from around the bowl. Oil your worktop surface (1 tsp). Kneed dough for 5-10 mins until smooth and stretchy. Put back in the bowl and cover with oiled cling film to prove for one hour.

Take out and knock the air out it. Shape into long rectangle. Layer cooked fillings in and cover in bread. Leave to prove again for 25 mins. Dust lightly with some flour and bake at 220degrees with a steam bath.

Notes:
I didn't add salt to my bread as the salt from the bacon was more than enough to season it. Also I did soak my bacon in water to remove some of the salt from it

Salsa

6 ripe tomatoes
1 large bunch of fresh coriander
1 onion
1 fresh jalapeño
1 large clove of garlic
1-2 limes, juice from
50 ml extra virgin olive oil
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
2 tbsp chilli flakes

Method:

Finely chop the tomatoes and coriander and place in a bowl. Peel and dice onion, de-seed and chop jalepeno and finely grate the garlic.

Add the juice of lime. Mix and season. Put into piping bag and tighten as tight as possible

Leave until last second to remove from bag