Gorgonzola, Pear and Walnut Bakes p.94/95

Over dinner tonight ... home made chicken & ham pasty, Tracy picked this one and as a result have recruited a new member to my tasting panel.

It will be good to see if these could be added to the menu for her 50th birthdsay celebrations in the summer. I now have Mondays project - it's good to have tasty delights to look forward to .... see you then :)

Well chosen Tracy Anstee !  

I made the bread dough first thing this morning using the same technique as the dried cherries & roquefort bread : use your hands because your sense of  touch is far more accurate  rather than sight when using a mixer.  Once your have formed your ball of dough and all the mix has been been included - sides of the clean - tip it out onto a lightly floured board :

 Knead it for 5-10 minutes until you have a ball of dough which has a smooth outer "skin".
Place it into a lightly oiled deep bowl and place a clean tea towel over it and,let it prove over 1 - 3 hours until it has at least doubled in size.  I, infact, left it longer since I was doing other thiongs including the sourcing of gorgonzola .... maybe 5 hours ...

Of course having sourced  gorgonzola ... Sainsbury's ... there were two types : dolce and piccante - hmmmm - which one ? Well the Silver Fox didn't state which one so a combo ! Soft, creamy and light : dolce, mixed with a harder - though a soft edge to it, more intense or deeper taste : piccante.

 

As you can see the dough rose well but you must not knock the air out of it in the next stage.
To remove I was going to use this "paddle" :

but didn't need to since the bowl had been lightly oiled and it tipped out easily onto my slab of marble on my work top.

I then lined two baking trays with baking parchment.



 

Pre-heat the oven at 220 or gas mark 7.

 

 



 

I then rolled the dough into a rectangle approx. 2.5 cms thick with the long edge infront of me - making the egde near me was tacked to the work surface.

 

 

I chopped up the gorgonzola into smallish pices and smashed (whacked them in a plastic food bvad witha rolling pin - a very therapeutic action for those who have a had a bad day at the office - better a split food bag of walnuts than a day in the office !) the walnuts into small pieces.  I peeled, cored and cut up te pears too into think small slices :



I then scattered the cheese over the rectangle and thern added the smashed walnut pieces.

Next I rolled the dough and contents into a sausage shape ensuring the edge was firmly attached to the long roll :

 

I rolled the sausage shape to ensure the dough stuck together.
Using a sharp knife I then cut out 3cms pieces - I got 10 good size pieces , the book says 15 ...  ooops :/ I placed them onto the two lined baking trays.

 

 

 I then placed the two baking trays into a plastic beg and let it prove for 30 minutes.  Last of all before placing them into the oven I placed two pieces of pear into each 'bak'e, sprinkled them lightly with flour and put them into the pre-heated oven.

Cook for 15 -20 minutes - mine took 25 ... until golden brown and of course cookred through - the botton when tapped should sound hollow - that's what I was told by Mrs. Morris - my Domestic Science teacher at Olchfa Comprehensive School '73-'75.

Voila !

Yet another one you'll have to make unless you're on my tasting panel - always looking for new members - indeed I recruited today.

So next will be wholemeal bread and croissants - Normandy butter ready and waiting :)
.