Makes approximately 80.

Overnight sponge

5g fresh yeast

130g water (at 20 deg c)

50g stoneground strong wholemeal flour

100g strong white flour

Final dough

285g overnight sponge (above)

130g water (at 20 deg c)

100g stoneground strong wholemeal flour

350g strong white flour

5g salt

270g water

15g butter or lard

Suggested fillings

• Olive & feta cheese
• Pepperoni & spot of tomato puree
• Small silverskin onion

Method

Overnight sponge. Mix all the ingredients until the dough has 'cleared', i.e. all the ingredients are thoroughly combined. The bowl should be large enough to allow it to expand to at least 3 times its original size. Cover with lid or polythene bag and leave it at ambient temperature for 12-18 hours.

Final dough. Mix all the ingredients together into a soft dough. Knead until it is silky and slightly stretchy. Leave to rise for 1 hour.

Divide the dough into 20g pieces, ball up each piece and rest under an up turned bowl for 15 minutes.

Take each ball and divide in two. Use your fingers to flatten and stretch the dough into a circle of approximately 50mm diameter. Place your chosen filling inside and wrap the dough around it. The dough should just reach around the filling.

Place on a baking tray lined with baking parchment and rest for 20 minutes.

Bake in the oven for 8-12 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.

The pictures are from our first trial bake. You can see there are two different sizes. The smallest size, described above, gave the best ratio of bread to filling. For our party we allowed for three poppers per person. These will freeze well, just leave at room temperature to defrost.

Credits

Dough recipe taken from 'Scotch morning rolls' by Andrew Whiteley in his book Bread Matters.