When I was new to baking I had a bash at making stollen, panatone, panforte, etc. But, as ever, being perverse I wanted to do something different from other bakers. These three breads became my staple Christmas offerings until my last commercial Christmas bake in 2020.
Brioche de Noël
This started out as Brioche Provençale, a simple “poor man’s brioche” studded with preserved fruits, very unlike the super-rich classical French brioche. The idea came from a bakery in Nice, Le Temple du Pain, at the top end of the market where a number of stalls sell fabulous preserved and crystalised fruits at fabulous prices.
For preserved fruits I tend to use pineapple, mango and ginger + glace cherries more for colour than anything else. A couple of days before mixing soak the fruit in a little brandy and orange juice just enough to be absorbed by the fruit. To this add the zest of the orange. If it is all absorbed there’s nothing to stop you adding a little more …
On bake day melt the butter, add the honey to make it more runny and to cool the butter. Lightly beat the eggs, add the milk and starter. Give the whole a gentle mix then add the flour, salt and the fruit. Mix then knead ten times, rest ten minutes and repeat the process two more times. Ferment at room temperature for four hours.
If making more the one loaf scale the dough to 600g. I prove and bake in Panibois boxes (and put £1.00 on the price) so that they can be given as presents.
You have to use your judgement with proving: probably 4 hours and not much of a visible rise (but bakers can intuit it). Brush with egg-wash before baking.
I start off at my usual bread baking temperature, which in a convection oven would be 210C and reduce to 180C after 15 minutes, baking 40 minutes in total, second coat of egg-wash half way through.
Cool completely before tarting up the bread with icing sugar snow and a sprig of naff plastic holly.
Christopsomo
This is the real star of the show and it comes with a story. Klimentini, a Greek customer, brought me a hand-written recipe and asked if I could bake it for her. It was the family recipe that her brother used to bake every year and mail to Wales in time for Christmas. But the previous Christmas the parcel arrived weeks late and the bread was broken into pieces. Maybe the customs thought the heavy spicing was there to mask smells that might otherwise interest the sniffer dogs!
This is the recipe I had to work from:
You will notice it’s an olive oil bread – no water. A lot of the ingredients are in kilos and grams but also we have coffee cups and glasses, no sizes mentioned. And no sign of any type of leavening. Well we like a challenge …
If you are converting a yeasted recipe to sourdough you take a proportion of flour and the same weight of water from the formula to make up the starter. What do you do if there’s no water in the original?
Made a few prototypes and the first Christmas the bread I made, although the taste was fantastic, maybe needed a little work. The second year I took a few more liberties with the original and it came out a lot better. By year three the dough and I were confident of each other.
Two days before mixing, soak the sultanas and raisins in the brandy and orange juice together with orange zest.
On bake day mix all the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, spices, walnuts, sesame, salt) and mix in the liquids (water, oil, starter), plus the fruit mix and juices.
As with the brioche, mix then knead ten times, rest ten minutes and repeat the process two more times. Ferment at room temperature for four hours.
Scale the dough to 600g. Top with a simple pattern of additional walnut halves (wet the bottoms and give them a little wriggle pressing into the dough). Prove and bake in Panibois boxes or similar.
You have to use your judgement with proving: probably 4 hours and not much of a rise.
I start off at my usual bread baking temperature, which in a convection oven would be 210C and reduce to 180C after 15 minutes, baking 40 minutes in total. Watch that the walnuts don’t burn – cover with a sheet of baking parchment if they are getting too dark.
Torth Nadolig/Torth yr Wyl
(Torth Nadolig = Christmas Loaf, Torth yr Wyl = Festive Loaf)
This is a bread I’m genuinely pleased with. I wanted to develop a bread for special occasions using ingredients associated with Wales (avoiding leeks, laverbread, cockles and Caerphilly cheese …). Oats and rye were once more commonly cultivated here; honey, and therefore mead, produced in Welsh monasteries; hazels grow widely; a handful of currants used to be added to doughs for festive occasions.
Two days before mixing, soak the currants in the mead and orange juice together with orange zest.
On bake day mix all the dry ingredients (flours, oats, salt, nuts, drained currants) and mix in the liquids (water + soaker liquid, honey, starter).
As with the previous two breads, mix then knead ten times, rest ten minutes and repeat the process two more times. Ferment at room temperature for four hours.
Scale and shape the dough to 600g.
Coat the dough with additional oats: take two trays, line one with a damp tea towel and the other with oats. Moisten the doughs by rolling on the tea towel and then roll in the oats until completely covered.
Prove and bake in Panibois boxes or similar.
You have to use your judgement with proving: probably 4 hours and not much of a rise.
I start off at my usual bread baking temperature, which in a convection oven would be 210C and reduce to 180C after 15 minutes, baking 40 minutes in total.
Nadolig Llawen/Happy Christmas
The PArtisan Baker 