Easy Wholemeal Red Wine Walnut Bread

Initially spied this beautiful reddish bread pictured at Susan's YeastSpotting.

Fell in love with the unique and wonderful colour. Though the entire post including recipe was in French, Sandra was kind enough to let me know that she adapted her recipe from this webpage.

Been waiting for an opportunity to try this. So FINALLY, we had some leftover red wine (which is not so often these days) *I quickly grabbed some and set it aside for this recipe!!*.

This bread has "a big walnut flavour. The bread is moist, tender, purple crumb studded with walnut and encased in a tender crust." With such an enticing opening by Dan Leopard, what are you waiting for? Ha ha

Original recipe

200g strong white flour
100g strong wholemeal flour
1 tsp fine sea salt
1 sachet easy-blend yeast
1 glass red wine (125ml), plus water to make 200ml [can substitute for ribena] I suppose you can substitute with white wine too but you'll miss out on the unique purple crumb then!]
50g whole toasted walnuts, plus 100g coarsely chopped
2 tbsp olive oil

1. Mix all ingredients together except the nuts and salt.


2. Knead for a few minute until the mixture comes together before adding the salt.


3. Knead dough for about 15 min or until dough is pliable. Mix in nuts.
   
4. Cover and proof for 1 hour.
   
   
5. Shape dough into a bartard and rest for 1.5 hour or until double in size.
   
   


6. Bake in preheated oven at 180 degrees for 40 min. Note that you may have to don a tent especially if the bread browns too fast.


7. Leave on rack to cool for about 2 hours.
   
   

M really loves this bread and can practically finish the whole loaf by herself. In her own words, the bread is very 'comforting' and addictive!!

The bread is nice eaten unadulterated with butter or any spreads. While resting and proofing the dough, the smell of red wine was rather strong but don't worry, it will almost dissipate as the bread bakes. The walnuts adds a lovely light texture to the bread.

Since I've tried this bread twice with success, I'll post it for yeast spotting @ WildYeast. Tks again to Sandra for introducing this wonderful recipe and intoxicating bread!

If you have any leftover red wine from the festive celebrations, why don't you give this ago - its a fairly simple bread with a BIG nutty flavour.