upside down cooking. a brand new way to cook in one tray. click here to pre-order

Dom in the Kitchen Homepage

Recipes from my Lincolnshire kitchen

bread and water – a BRITA water filter jug giveaway

by

… it’s amazing that, considering the amount of water we use in our cooking, we very rarely think of it as a main ingredient and it was only when the good people at BRITA asked me to become an ambassador in their Better with BRITA campaign that I properly thought about it… it is naturally in nearly everything we cook and of course we wouldn’t be able to survive without the stuff, so it makes sense that, seeing we’re creating such wonderful food, we try at least to add a good quality water to the ingredient list…

… i’m actually a big advocate for using good old-fashioned tap-water.  It is delivered to your very own kitchen tap and has been serving us well for a couple of hundred years give or take and is so much better for the environment that bottled water that may have travelled for miles just to reach your lips… so I love the idea that BRITA create a filtering system that make your household water even more gorgeous…

… to celebrate their love for filtered water BRITA has teamed up with Delicious Magazine to launch a campaign to find passionate foodies who want to showcase their own amazing recipes using filtered water… the details to enter the campaign are on the Delicious Mag website… all the entries will judged by an expert panel, including our very own Karen from Lavender and Lovage, who will draw up a shortlist of people who will be given the chance to come to London and make their recipe for the judges to taste… three lucky winners will then be invited on a VIP trip to attend The Big Festival – the UK’s most popular food festival, and it’s here that they will be able to sell their produce… it’s a great idea for someone with a budding food business or a group of friends who love to cook or even that last chance to show off Auntie Mable’s secret scone recipe… and it could be YOU!

… of course you’ll need filtered water so to inspire you to enter I have been given a wonderful Marella water filter jug to give away to one lucky Belleau Kitchen reader – all you have to do is fill in the clever rafflecopter gadety thing below…

classic white egg loaf
in the meantime here’s my favourite thing to make with water… a most basic of food staples… bread.  This is a classic loaf with added milk and egg to soften.

enough for two large loaves – using the low-knead method
600g strong white bread flour
200g white seeded flour
2 teaspoons quick action yeast
2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons sugar
400ml filtered water
150ml milk
1 egg – beaten
throw all the bread ingredients into a very large bowl, bring together with a rubber spatula, cover with a tea towel and set aside for ten minutes whilst you make a cup of tea
oil your work surface, remove the sticky dough from the bowl, oil the bowl and wipe it with your hand, then with your oily hand, knead the dough 8 times, place the dough back in the bowl, cover with a tea towel and set aside for 10 minutes
repeat twice more then cover the bowl with cling film and set aside for an hour or until the dough has doubled in size
preheat the oven to 200C and prep two baking trays with parchment paper
oil your work surface and knead the dough, punching it had and folding it over a few time, then divide in two, set one piece aside
flatten it out into an oval shape and then roll it up into a tight sausage, tuck the ends under and either place on an oiled baking tray or into a loaf tin – set aside for 30 mins whilst you heat up the oven to 200C.
once the oven is hot, place a tray of cold water in the oven, then brush the top of the loaf with beaten egg and bake on 200C for 10 mins then reduce the heat to 180 for a further 20 mins then remove from the oven and lay on a wire rack to cool
eat and of course, enjoy!

a Rafflecopter giveaway//widget.rafflecopter.com/load.js

Share this post:

Share on LinkedIn

Reader Interactions

upside down cooking. a brand new way to cook in one tray. click here to pre-order

Comments

  4. Jean | DelightfulRepast.com says

    Dom, your bread looks wonderful! I love making bread of all kinds, lots of different methods – I'm just a breadaholic! And I'm satisfied to use tap water most of the time, but a couple times a year when the lake (our water source) “turns over” and the water tastes awful, I get out my Brita pitcher!

  13. Samantha says

    I use a Brita water filter to avoid messing up my crazy-expensive espresso machine with limescale, but this post has made me re-think cooking with the water – I now have high hopes for improving soup!

  32. Anonymous says

    Ice cubes a slice of fresh lemon or lime, a tall glass filled to the brim with Brita filtered Water is pure pleasure and so good for me. Thank you also for the loaf recipe. Just what I need for inspiration to bake real bread and fillmy kitchen with wonderful aromas.
    From Sandra .O
    cream_160@hotmail.com

  44. Susan Lindquist says

    here in our neck of the woods, most people rely on private wells to supply their drinking water and since this area has varying degrees of iron and manganese in the water, filtering systems are rampant. I have used a Britta or PUR water filtering jug for our drinking water for years … and so it's always fridge cold … it really does improve the flavour of our well water. This is a great give away for your Euro readers, Dom!

    Another gorgeous loaf, by the by!

  58. Choclette says

    We are so lucky to have easy access to clean drinking water and Invariably take it for granted. It doesn't bear thinking about all the people that don't.

  80. Charlotte Ingham says

    Something in the middle (a pleasant chilled!) – Ice Cold is *too* cold but I don't like icky room temperature either!

  128. Helen Stott says

    Ice is a solid so is therefore impossible to drink until it has melted back into a liquid. Is this a trick question. I like ice in my water. But dont like the whole glass as cold as ice.