A savoury loaf with cubed mozzarella, basil and sun-dried tomatoes, leavened with baking powder and buttermilk rather than yeast. One 8×4 loaf, fifty minutes.
Ingredients
- 2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1 1/4 tsp salt
- 4 oz fresh mozzarella cheese, cubed
- 2 tbsp fresh basil, chopped
- 1/3 cup sun-dried tomatoes, chopped
- 2 eggs
- 2 1/2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 1/4 cups buttermilk
Sun-dried tomatoes, not fresh
A third of a cup, chopped.
Fresh tomato releases water during the bake, which leaves grey streaks through the crumb and a loaf that sinks in the middle because the structure never sets around the liquid.
Sun-dried tomatoes have already given up their water. What remains is concentrated and salty enough to season the bread from the inside.
Oil-packed are better than dry-packed. Dry-packed stay leathery unless soaked in hot water for ten minutes and drained.
The buttermilk is what makes the soda work
A cup and a quarter.
Baking soda needs an acid to react with, and buttermilk supplies it. Plain milk leaves the soda unreacted, which gives a dense loaf with a faintly soapy aftertaste.
The substitution in the recipe is two tablespoons of vinegar topped up with milk to 1 1/4 cups, left a few minutes until it thickens and looks curdled. That appearance is correct. Lemon juice works in place of the vinegar.
Fresh mozzarella, not the block
Four ounces, cubed small.
Low-moisture block mozzarella melts into greasy pockets that leave holes once the loaf cools. Fresh mozzarella melts more gently and holds enough shape to read as soft cheesy patches.
Pat the cubes dry first, since fresh mozzarella sits in liquid.
Cut them around a centimetre. Larger cubes sink.
Toss the additions in the flour
Before any liquid arrives.
Coating the cheese, basil and tomatoes in dry flour keeps them from clumping when the wet ingredients go in, and it suspends them through the crumb rather than letting them collect at the bottom.
This is the same reason blueberries get floured in a muffin batter.
Chop the basil last
Two tablespoons.
Cut basil oxidises and darkens at the edges within about twenty minutes. The flavour holds but the flecks through the crumb turn from green to black.
Dried basil is not a substitution. It goes dusty in baked goods.
A wooden spoon, and stop early
Stir only until the dry flour disappears.
Every extra stir develops gluten, and gluten in a quick bread gives a tight, chewy, rubbery loaf. The dough should look shaggy and slightly underworked when you stop.
It will be sticky. That is correct.
The salt reads high because there is no sugar
A teaspoon and a quarter.
This is a savoury loaf with cheese and sun-dried tomato and no sweetness anywhere to balance against. If the tomatoes are heavily salted, drop to a teaspoon.
Test away from the cheese
Forty to forty five minutes at 350F.
A toothpick pushed into a pocket of melted mozzarella reads as wet batter and sends you back for ten minutes the loaf does not need.
Test in two or three places before deciding.
Cool before slicing
Ten minutes in the pan, then out onto a rack.
Cut hot, it tears, because the cheese is still molten and the crumb has not set.
Storing
Best the day it is baked.
Day two it is good toasted. Day three it is dry enough to be better cubed for croutons than eaten plain.
Wrap in foil rather than plastic, which traps steam against the crust and softens it.
Quick Caprese Bread
Equipment
- 8×4‑inch loaf pan
- Large Mixing Bowl
- Second bowl
- Whisk
- Wooden Spoon
- Wire rack
Ingredients
- 2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1 1/4 tsp salt
- 4 oz fresh mozzarella cheese cubed
- 2 tbsp fresh basil chopped
- 1/3 cup sun-dried tomatoes chopped
- 2 eggs
- 2 1/2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 1/4 cups buttermilk or 2 tbsp vinegar topped up with milk to 1 1/4 cups and rested until thickened
Instructions
- Heat the oven. Preheat the oven to 350F and grease an 8×4 inch loaf pan.
- Combine the dry ingredients. In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Mix well.
- Coat the additions. Add the basil, mozzarella and sun-dried tomatoes to the flour and toss until coated and evenly distributed, which keeps them suspended rather than sinking.
- Whisk the wet ingredients. In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs, olive oil and buttermilk.
- Mix briefly. Pour the liquids into the flour mixture and mix with a wooden spoon only until the dry flour disappears. The dough will be sticky and shaggy. Do not overmix.
- Bake. Transfer to the loaf pan and spread evenly. Bake 40 to 45 minutes, testing in two or three places away from any pocket of melted cheese.
- Cool. Cool in the pan 10 minutes, then turn out onto a rack and cool before slicing.
