This recipe will give a soft loaf with a crunchy, cheesy, salty crust – best served slathered in your home-made butter! It adds great flavour to a plain old cheese toastie or if it’s a couple of days old chop it up and fry in a pan to make tasty croutons for soup.

I made this loaf to make use of the lovely fresh buttermilk left-over from my home made butter. Fresh buttermilk doesn’t have any culture added to it (cultureless-swine!) so it doesn’t have the same sourness/acidity that shop-bought buttermilk has. It’s a little sweeter so if you’re going to use shop-bought buttermilk be sure and add a little more sugar to the recipe, or keep the quantity as it is to make a sour-dough style bread instead!

I also made this recipe using shop-bought buttermilk and traditionally churned, smoked Abernethy butter and it gave a sour-dough style bread with a hint of smoke – delicious!

Parmesan Crusted Buttermilk Bread

Ingredients

500g Strong white flour

7g fast acting yeast

smoked sea salt flakes

50g Poppyseeds

50g Basil and garlic butter (melted)

50g Sugar

200mL buttermilk (lukewarm)

150mL warm water

80g grated parmesan cheese

1 beaten egg

Method

Mix the flour, poppy seeds, yeast, sugar and a pinch of sea salt in a large bowl and make a well in the centre of the mix.

Mix the melted butter with the warm buttermilk and water. Gradually pour the liquid to the centre of the bowl and mix to create a dough.

Cover the bowl with cling-film and leave in a warm place for a minimum of 1hr to prove (if you can leave it overnight – even better, just don’t forget about it!).

Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead it to knock back some of the air pockets that have formed in the rise. Shape the dough into a ball and place on a floured baking tray. Wash the surface of the dough with eggwash and sprinkle with salt flakes, poppyseeds and parmesan cheese. Bake in a preheated oven for 50-60 mins @180°C.

To check the bread has baked thoroughly, turn the bread upside-down and tap the base – it should sound hollow if it’s cooked!

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SculleryMade is a Belfast project to share recipes using quality, locally sourced ingredients. Our main recipes include methods for cooking, baking, brewing and curing.

SculleryMade – Ormeau Rd, Belfast                                                      Contact: Caoimhe@scullery-made.com