Ravishing red onion and sundried tomato bread

I'm working on a recipe book at the moment with my friend Laura Mossop (there is a link to her illustration blog over there). I'm developing the recipes and going to work on the text within the book and she will do the design and illustration. The main point of the book is that it's going to be as much a piece of beautiful design as it is a functional book so hopefully it will stand out from the crowd. Lots of origional art work and digitally overworked photos... I am really excited about this, I love baking. I'm going to start recording the things I bake on here as well to give me practice at writing recipes & instructions down.



Ravishing red onion & sundried tomato bread




This recipe came out really fluffy and with a nice soft crust. I included the oil from the pieces of sundried tomato and lots of pepper.

Have a warm place prepared for the bread to rise- if you don't have anywhere particularly warm put the oven on low and pop the dough in there covered in a damp cloth.

Ingredients

475g of strong white bread flour (wholemeal, granary etc would be delicious too)
1 tbl sp olive oil
1tsp of salt
A good pinch of black pepper
1/2 tsp of sugar
1 1/2 tsp of dried fast action yeast
275ml warm water
1 small red onion chopped finely
4 or 5 pieces of sundried tomato chopped roughly

Directions

1. In a large bowl mix together the flour, salt, black pepper, sugar, yeast, oil, onion and tomato
2. Add the warm water and mix
3. When the dough has roughly come together turn out on to a clean, floured surface
4. Knead the mixture ( sprinkling with extra flour if the dough becomes sticky) for around 10 minutes until the dough is smooth and elastic
5. Put back in the large bowl and cover in a damp cloth, leave in a warm place until the dough has doubled in size- about 1 hour
6. Turn the dough out onto the floured surface. Gently knead the dough for 5 minutes
7. Shape the dough- I made into a round even loaf and divided it into 8 segments and shaped each segment into a roll.
8. Return to the warm place ( again covered in a damp cloth) and leave for around 45 minutes
9. Preheat your oven to around 200c and bake the bread until golden. The bread should should hollow when the bottom is tapped.