Cheesey bacon spelt bread

We have been invited over to a friends house for a lasagna dinner tonight, and I hate rocking up anywhere empty handed especially this couple who are always so generous and often invite us around and supply a huge yummy feast and drinks ;) 

I finished up in the salon early for a Saturday so I had some time to prepare some bread , not so healthy though but hey you only live once and can have a naughty day every now and then right? Plus you can't have lasagna with out a delicious fresh bread to compliment. 

I was really nervous baking this as I sort of just added everything to the Thermomix bowl measuring as I went along with fingers crossed it would be ok. Baking has never been my forte so I was pleasantly surprised when all came together quite nicely ;) 

First up I had some bacon in the freezer that I'd defrosted and 220g of it did seem like quite a lot but I needed to use it all up, so if wanting you could probably halve the amount if bacon used , but who doesn't love bacon? I quickly diced it up once it had defrosted. 

To the bowl add : 

3 cloves of garlic 

Mince on speed 8 for 10 seconds. Scrape down sides. 

Then add 220g diced bacon rashes 

40 g butter 

Cook on varoma temperature for 2 minutes reverse speed 2 with mc lid off. 

Remove from bowl and set aside to cool 

Grate in bowl 

80 g tasty cheese

20 g Parmesan cheese 

Remove and set aside 

Grate in bowl 

1 cup fresh basil 

Remove and set aside with the cheese 

Make sure you have scraped the bowl as best as possible of any cheese and basil. 

Then measure and add to bowl in this order : 

300 g Luke warm water 

2 teaspoons dried yeast 

1 teaspoon sea salt 

Mix together in bowl on 39 degrees speed 2 for 40 seconds. 

Add to bowl 

320 g white spelt flour 

200 g wholemeal spelt flour 

10 g extra virgin olive oil 

1 teaspoon wallabies bread improver 

About half the diced bacon 

About half cheese and basil mixture 

Mix all ingredients together on speed 6 for 10 seconds 

Set dial to closed lid position and knead for 1 minute. 

Spray oil on thermo mat and remove dough onto the mat and roll into a ball, wrap dough lightly in mat and set aside to rise in a warm spot ( dash board of car always a winner for me )  for about half a hour.

After the dough has doubled. Punch down and quickly and gently separate into 3 even pieces and roll into logs like this , the dough should be very sticky and tacky. 

Careful not to over knead or roll the dough too much. As I've mentioned before spelt flour does not like over kneading and will make the bread more dense. 

Then remove logs onto a oven tray lined with baking paper and gently plait the dough

Sprinkle remaining cheese and bacon mixtures on top 

And set aside to rest for another 10 minutes. 

Then pop into a cold oven for 30 minutes on 200 degrees. 

Check the bread after 30 minutes, I struggle to know when bread is ready and I sometimes seem to over bake then I get the accused " rock bread " thrown around. I put a skewer in the middle and it came out clean so that was my sign it was baked ;) and it turned out perfect. Still lovely and soft and moist. We had lashings of butter and my friend had hers with coconut oil spread onto it. 

Will definitely make this bread again !