Cider Bread with memories.

23 November 2017; exactly twenty-one years to the day since a party in the ruins of a stately home for an erstwhile classmate's birthday. It was also almost nineteen years to the day since a party in the same location, for the same reason, with, largely, the same people in the winter of '98.

On the player during cooking of today's recipe was the deluxe version of "Back to Black" that I had acquired from my dining partner. She has a good taste in music. In light of the fact that the album's author sadly joined the '27' club in 2011, a listen to this modern classic signposts exactly why this happened. Indeed, the lyrics to songs such as the timeless "Rehab", the capital title track and the raw hurt of "Addicted" proved to be grimly prophetic. The album is certainly one that proves the theory that great art does not spring from contentment.

It was against this soundtrack that I decided to make some bread, as I had yet to subject my dining partner to my bread making skills. The ingredients for the bread I chose to make, which was a Cider, Apple and Wensleydale Bread, were as follows:

For the dough:

Fifteen Ounces of Wholemeal Bread Flour.
One teaspoon of Yeast.
Two teaspoons of Dried Rosemary.
One teaspoon of Mustard Seeds.
One Russet Apple, without its core, top or tail.
Ten Ounces of Wensleydale Cheese.
Half a pint of Cider.

For the topping:

One teaspoon of Sesame Seeds.
One teaspoon of Nigella Seeds.

The method to use is as follows:

1. Mix the Flour and Yeast together in a mixing bowl.
2. Add and stir in the Rosemary, Mustard Seeds, Apple and Cheese.
3. Gradually add the Cider while mixing it in gently.
4. Once it's all mixed together, knead vigorously into a flat circle.
5. Top it with the Sesame and Nigella Seeds by spraying them widely on top of the bread.
6. Leave to rise in a warm room by the window, preferably south-facing, for two to three hours.
7. Bake it in the oven for twenty-five minutes on Gas Mark Six.

The taste of this bread was very moist due to Apple and Wensleydale, while the Mustard Seeds and Rosemary gave it a distinctive and warm flavour.  My dining partner concluded it was a healthy and easy to digest, compared to supermarket bread, and a bread recipe that she'd make herself. She also believed it to be nutritious,flavoursome and unique.

The weather was so warm that we had the bread as part of a picnic on the last Friday in November. Funnily enough we ate it on a bench in the grounds of the stately home I had visited for those parties nineteen and twenty one years earlier. As the sun shone down on us I reflected on the parties and regaled my dining partner with stories of my first taste of lager, the guests (one of whom is no longer with us), and midnight walks round the ruins- all things that took place during these parties.

Open Sesame- the bread topped with Sesame and Nigella Seeds cooling down after a spell in the oven.