Mediterranean Tomato Bread with Goat’s Milk Camembert
Recipe type: Bread
Prep time: 
Cook time: 
Total time: 
Serves: 4-6
 
Ingredients
  • 300ml (or 1¼ cup) tomato juice
  • 7 grams (or 2½ teaspoons) active-dry yeast
  • 500g (or 4 cups) all-purpose flour
  • 5g (or 4 teaspoons) mixed dried italian herbs
  • 60g (or 2 ounces) sundried tomatoes, chopped
  • 1 teaspoon of table salt
  • 5 tbsp olive oil
  • 200g ( or 7 ounces) goat’s milk camembert (or regular camembert if you can’t get your hands on the goat’s milk version)
Instructions
  1. In a small saucepan, gently heat the tomato juice over low heat to body temperature. Yeast loves body temperature. Take the juice off the heat and pour it in a small bowl. Sprinkle over the yeast. Leave the yeats to bloom for 1 minute, then stir to combine. Leave to sit undisturbed for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes, the mixture should look bubbly and ‘yeasty’. I fit doesn’t, discard it, because the yeast will be dead and of no more use.
  2. In the meantime, combine the flour, Italian herbs, sundried tomatoes and salt in a medium-sized bowl. Be sure to squeeze the excess oil out of the tomatoes before you add them to the flour mixture. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture. Add 3 tbsp of the olive oil and the yeast-tomato mixture to the well and start mixing the dough with the fingers of one hand. Don’t add any more liquid. Work the dough long enough and it will come together into a sticky ball.
  3. Once the dough as come together, start kneading it on your undusted (clean!) countertop. Knead the dough by holding it with one hand and stretching it across the countertop with the palm of the other hand. Roll the dough into a ball again and repeat. Don’t be too neat about it. This movement should be really fast. Knead for 15 minutes or until the dough is elastic (yes, this is quite a workout).
  4. To test whether the dough has been worked enough, push your index finger into it. The little dent you’ve just created should spring back a little. Another way of testing the dough for doneness, is stretching a small part of it until it’s very thin. If the dough has been properly kneaded, you should be able to stretch it thin enough for light to pass through without breaking.
  5. Add the remaining 2 tablespoons of olive oil to to a medium-sized bowl, plop in the dough, turn it around so that it’s covered in oil, cover with plastic wrap and leave to rise in a warm place until doubled in size. Mine took about 2 hours. Once the dough has risen, preheat your oven to 225°C/440°F (standard oven setting) and place a baking sheet in the oven to heat up as well.
  6. In the meantime, plop the dough onto a sheet of baking parchment, press it down with your hands (flattening it), then fold it over onto itself a couple of times and shape it into a ball. Place the dough ball on another (clean) sheet of baking parchment and press it down into a rough rectangle of about 1,5-cm thick. Slide the parchment (with the dough on it) onto another baking sheet (so you’ve got one in the preheating oven and another to rest your dough on), cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise in a warm place again, for about half an hour or until doubled in size.
  7. Meanwhile, cut the goat’s milk camembert into thin slices. I cut mine about 3-mm (about one tenth of an inch) thick. Arrange the slices on top of the risen bread, completely covering the top.
  8. Then slide the dough (with the parchment) from the cool baking sheet onto the hot baking sheet that had been preheating in your oven. Bake for 15-20 minutes. The dough should rise a bit more, the cheese should melt and after you’ve taken the bread out of the oven and tap the bottom of it with a wooden spoon you should hear a hollow sound.
  9. Leave to cool completely on a wire rack. Cut into thick slices and serve with soup or on it’s own!
Notes
Adapted from: 'Tomatenbrood met Geitenbrie', Allerhande 12, 2003
Recipe by The Tough Cookie at https://thetoughcookie.com/2014/01/10/mediterranean-tomato-bread-with-goats-milk-camembert/