Raspberry rye Sunday loaf in waiting

Would you look at this monster?

I’m waiting.

Stuff’s happening, or supposed to. Or at least it should, soon enough.

It’s quiet, and that usually happens before a storm breaks out and yes, a storm in the summer months this side of the hemisphere, the irony.

In the meantime I try to workout, release excess stress that somehow always seems to settle on my shoulders. This is a good time to catch up with friends, eat in places I’ve been putting off and catching up on TV series forever on my to do list. Baking is my stress ball; a bit of dough making, kneading and mixing usually does the trick and it comes naturally with an invigorating aroma that hovers around the house for a good few hours, encouraging deep breaths and thus promoting a general sense of calm.

Its berry season and it feels like such a waste to east the ruby red edible raspberry diamonds straight from the box. Instead, I opted for a raspberry Sunday loaf. Its called a Sunday loaf but I baked it on a Saturday and it lasted the week. The loaf bridges between a quick bread and a coffee cake, the not too sweet loaf has a tanned crust, a buttery mouth feel and a pleasant crumble with chunks of ever-so-slightly sour raspberries bursting with mini tangy explosions that swirl in and around the batter.

Raspberry rye Sunday loaf

The recipe was heavily adapted from Marion Cunnigham’s Breakfast book. The raspberry jam was substituted with a generous quantity of raw berries and I also introduced the nutty flavor of rye flour.

Extremely recommended toasted and slathered with salted butter.

(makes 1 loaf)

Ingredients

2 cups all purpose flour

1 cup rye flour

½ cup sugar

4 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

100g butter, chilled and diced

2 eggs

1 cup fresh or frozen raspberries

¾ cup milk

For the glaze

2 tbs butter

2 tbs apple jelly jam (or any other jam you have or like)

1. Preheat the oven to 175C then butter and flour a loaf pan.
2. In a large bowl, use a fork to combine the flours, sugar, baking powder and salt.
3. Add the diced chilled butter to the mixture and use your fingers to ‘rub’ the butter into the flour mixture until the wole thing resembles coarse sand.
4. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs. Add the milk and mix until combined.
5. Pour the milk-egg mixture and the fresh berries into the flour mixture and stir only until no flour streak show. The mixture will be lumpy.
6. Spoon the batter into the loaf pan and bake until the loaf is a golden tan and a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean, about 1¼ hours.
7. Leave the loaf in the pan for 15 minutes before turning it onto a rack.
8. Prepare the glaze: in a small saucepan combine the butter and jelly. Stir and bring to a simmer. Strain the glaze and once the loaf has cooled, spoon over the loaf.