Milk Bread. With Fennel.

Oh my word, this is completely and utterly delicious.  So much so that I'm in self imposed exile to stop me devouring it all before the hubbie gets home.  Think white fluffy dough, the scent of fennel and a crisp crust and you're halfway there.  The rest is indescribable tasty joy, the smell of which lingers in the house for hours and hours.

I found the recipe in South Africa's 'Food and Home' magazine.  While a little left-field it looked so delicious I thankfully gave it a go.  It would be amazing for breakkie if you can be bothered to get up a couple of hours early, or for afternoon tea in a field...Serve it with honeycomb pieces for picturesque luxury but ensure you scrape on some salted butter first, there is something divine about the combination of fennel, salty butter and sweet honey.

Ingredients

375 ml milk
60 ml olive oil, plus extra for greasing
15 ml honey
500 g plain flour, plus extra for kneading
10 g sachet dry yeast
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp fennel seeds, lightly toasted

Method

1. Brush a largish bread tin with olive oil.
2. Heat the milk, oil, honey and yeast in a saucepan on a very low heat until lukewarm.

3. Mix the flour, salt and fennel seeds in a bowl, pour over the warm milk.

4. Knead on a floured surface until the dough is smooth and elastic (I had to add quite a few tbsp of flour at this point to stop it being too sticky).

5. Put the dough in an oiled bowl and cover with oiled cling-film and place in a warm draught free place for an hour, until doubled in size.
6. Preheat the oven to 220C.
7. Knock back the dough and divide into 8 to 12 pieces. Make into little buns by pulling the outside of a piece and pushing it into the middle, turning the dough a quarter turn and pulling and pushing again, etc, etc..

8. Fit the buns into the prepared tin, rubbing oil on the sides of each bun before tucking in the next one.

9. Cover with oiled cling-film and leave to rise for 15 minutes until doubled in size.

10. Brush the tops with milk and bake until golden, about 25 to 35 minutes.  It will be ready when the bread sounds hollow when you knock the base.

11. Leave to cool for as long as you can bear on a wire rack.

Serve with honeycomb and salted butter...

Just try and resist.