Melandra Loaf

My take on the traditional Derbyshire recipe. It’s based on sourdough rather than a yeasted dough, mildy enriched with fat and milk, and with lots of fruit. My inspiration came from the Hairy Bikers, and I’ve merged it with my standard sourdough recipe, which is based on the “Bake with Jack” YouTube series.

It’s named after the ancient Roman fort near Buxton, although there’s no suggestion that the Romans actually baked it in England as some of the ingredients weren’t available here until the 1600’s.

Ingredients

• Step 1
  • 150g sourdough starter
  • 450g strong white bread flour
  • 300ml full fat milk
  • 50g lard, cubed
  • Zest of 1 orange, grated
• Step 2
  • 8g salt
• Step 3
  • 50 g soft light brown sugar
  • 50 g currants
  • 100 g glace cherries, roughly chopped
  • 100 g dates, finely chopped
  • 100 g tinned pineapple, well drained & roughly chopped
• Step 7
  • 2 tbsp marmalade, warmed & with large pieces of peel removed.

Method

1. Warm half the milk and then add the lard, finely cubed and stir until it melts. Add the remaining milk,so that you have a mix that’s no more than hand hot. Mix the starter with some of the milk mixture to loosen it, then add the flour, orange zest and remaining liquid. Mix with a dough scraper to make a rough dough. Moisten the dough with a spray of water and leave to stand for 60 minutes.
2. Tip dough onto a moistened work surface, and sprinkle evenly with the salt. Then using wet hands, fold, stretch and turn dough about a dozen times until well mixed, lump free, and starting to become a little stretchy. Return dough to moistened bowl, spray with a little water, cover with a teatowel and leave to stand for about 2 hours.
3. Mix the fruits with the sugar. Tip the dough onto a moistened work surface, and using wet hands, fold, stretch and turn dough four or five times, (or a few more if you’re feeling keen), incorporating the sugar and fruit mix into the dough. Return dough to moistened bowl, spray with a little water, cover with a teatowel and leave to stand for about 2 hours.
4. Lightly flour the worksurface and the top of the dough, and tip the dough out. Stretch, fold and turn 4 or 5 times, and return the dough to the bowl, covered, overnight in the fridge.
5. Shape dough and put in baking tin. I use a 9” springform tin. Leave to rise until increased in size by about 50%.
6. Preheat oven to 200C and bake for about 1 hour. You may need to cover the top with foil after the first 30 minutes if it’s getting too dark. It will be done once the internal temperture reaches about 90-93 degrees C.
7. While still warm, glaze with a little warmed marmalade, and leave to cool completely before eating. It’s actually better the next day, and it freezes well.

Credits

I started my sourdough journey by following Jack’s method, which is on his website. The Hairy Bikers version of this recipe is on the BBC Food website.