Lazy Loaf

I love to bake bread. I found an irrational fear of cake baking in the early days of my cooking life, with suspect recipes and dodgy ovens that left me with undercooked and unappetizing results so bad, I thought I didn't even like cakes - until I started cooking from Nigella's recipes. Bread never worried me. My poor Mother's disasters, due mainly to her attempts at bread using regular plain flour, showed me the key was to use real bread or strong flour. My confidence has paid off and I have made many a delicious loaf.

The trouble is, right now, my bread baking is infrequent. I still do it, but what was, in the past at least a weekly event, is now bi-annually, or so it seems. I tend toward 'cheat' recipes now, I am sure, when the littlest ones are a bit bigger, I will get back into more traditional methods, but I am not such a purist as to think that is the only way.

I've been wanting to try Lazy Loaf from Nigella Express since I got the book I'd say. I've just never gotten around to having the right muesli or wholemeal bread flour before today. Now that I have both, there are no excuses. Tossing a few ingredients together before sticking them in the tin and then into a very slow oven, bumping up the heat and then heading off to collect Miss Six from school. Arriving home to smell the wafting aromas of freshly baked bread (with a twist) waiting for us.

I was concerned about the two main ingredients of muesli brand (I went with Carman's Classic Fruit Muesli) as Nigella mentioned sugar free - my choice had honey. The bread I found was No Knead Wholemeal Flour, which appears to be 'normal', that is, no extra ingredients, I hope that as I didn't knead the bread, this helps rather than hinders the results! I had no semi-skim milk, so had a choice of regular milk or buttermilk, I thought buttermilk would be a great option....would I be right or hopelessly mistaken?

Lazy Loaf

This is as I made mine, for the original version check link above.

200g best-quality oaty sugar-free muesli (Carman's worked a treat)
325g wholemeal bread flour (Simply No Knead proved effective)
6g dried yeast
2 teaspoons Maldon salt or 1 teaspoon table salt
250ml buttermilk
250ml water (I warmed this to offset the coldness of the milk - no idea if this is necessary)


Mix together the muesli, flour, yeast and salt in a bowl and then pour in the milk and water and stir to mix. It will look like a thick porridge.

Transfer to a silicone 900g loaf tin (or a traditional tin, greased), spread it evenly out. Put the tin in a cold oven, before turning it on to 110°C and leaving it for 45 minutes.

When the 45 minutes are up, turn the oven up to 180°C and bake for 1 hour, which should see your bread golden and cooked through (mine was darker on top, perhaps due to the honey in the muesli). Remove the bread from the tin and knock it's underside, it should feel and sound hollow, though it is a dense bread which wont rise all that much. Nigella suggests that in need you can pop it back in the oven out of the tin, but mine was perfect as it was.

Transfer to a rack, to cool.

I've been looking for a way to use up some of the Marmalade made from my Mum's various citrus tree fruits, well this Orange, Lime, Grapefruit and Lemon Marmalade worked a treat on this bread, the first time slightly warm. It is a dense loaf, but in a homely comforting way. I was worried it might be a little like the loaf that kills a duck in About a boy, but happily this is not the case. I've used up all my buttermilk, but might give it another go with regular milk and see how the results differ.