I previously tried 90 white/10 chestnut, based on a pain de campagne recipe from Paul Hollywood substituting chestnut for the rye flour, but although it was a very nice bread it wasn't as chestnut flavoured as I wanted to accompany a hearty autumn soup (spiced roast butternut squash and apple). So I tried a basic Paul Hollywood bloomer recipe, but making a quarter of the flour chestnut flour and omitting the oil (which I usually do - it doesn't seem necessary). This rose pretty well and had a good nutty taste, though it didn't develop a crunchy crust as a pure white loaf would have done.

Ingredients

• 125g Chestnut Flour
• 375g Strong White Flour (I used very strong Canadian)
• 7g instant yeast
• 10g salt
• 320g water

Method

1. Mix flour, yeast and salt and then add in water, kneading to form a dough in the usual way until it passes the "windowpane" test where a piece of the dough can be stretched to a thin translucent sheet without immediately tearing. The chestnut flour is a little grainy, so this behaves more like wholemeal than pure white but I got a dough which stretched well
2. Cover and leave for first rise, approx 2 hours, until doubled in size
3. Knock back and shape into a loaf - I used a circular banneton for a nice rustic look
4. Pre-heat oven to 220 degrees C
5. Cover and leave for second rise, approx 1 hour until well risen and a mark remains when poked with a finger
6. Bake for 20 minutes at 220, with a roasting tray of water in the bottom of the oven to produce some steam
7. Reduce to 200 degrees for a further 10-15 minutes
8. Check that the loaf is cooked in the usual way - by tapping the bottom and checking for a hollow sound
9. Cool, serve with a hearty autumn soup

Credits

Bsaed on the Bloomer recipe in Paul Hollywood's "Bread".