Classic White Loaf - Food 'n' Flix: Moonstruck

This month's Food 'n' Flix was chosen by Eliot's Eats and the film selected was Moonstruck, starring Cher and Nicolas Cage. I'd never seen the film, which dates from 1987, and from the poster image (above) imagined Cher played a witch, similar to the Witches of Eastwick. In actual fact Cher plays a Sicilian-American widow who gets engaged to her boyfriend Jonny and decides to persuade his estranged brother Ronny (Nicolas Cage) to the wedding. Ronny works in a bakery, and lost his hand in an accident with a bread slicer when he was distracted by his brother; as a result his fiance left him not wanting to marry a man who was maimed, and Ronny never forgave Jonny. Loretta (Cher) and Ronny fall in love and begin an affair, while Johnny is away visiting his sick mother; when he comes back he says that he can't marry Loretta as it would kill his mother (I'm not sure I was quite following at this point) so Ronny proposes to her instead.

Unfortunately I didn't like this film at all. It dated badly and the characters were quite over the top (particularly the accents) and the chemistry between Cher and Nicolas Cage didn't seem remotely believable. I was very surprised to learn that the film was nominated for six oscars!

Even though I didn't like the film I decided to make something inspired by the film for the Food 'n' Flix challenge. There are a lot of scenes in restaurants and over dinner or breakfast; true to the Sicilian American heritage, I noticed spaghetti, tiramisu and the like. But I decided instead to go with the bakery that Ronny works in, and to make a loaf of bread - luckily you're not very likely to get injured making bread in a domestic kitchen!

I recently went on a cookery day with the Fabulous Baker Brothers and made lots of types of bread including pittas, pizzas and bread rolls. We also made a standard loaf and I decided to try out the recipe again at home. I used Tom Herbert's classic white loaf recipe which you can find in their recipe book or online.

You need:
560g strong white flour
10g salt (preferably sea salt but I used regular salt and it turned out OK)
20ml rapeseed oil (I used vegetable oil)
5g dried yeast or 10g fresh yeast (I have no idea where to buy fresh yeast but had some I brought back from the cookery course)
300ml warm water.

I used a KitchenAid mixer which made it very straightforward. Simply put all the ingredients in a bowl...

 

... switch on....

... and ten to 15 minutes later you have your dough.

Cover and leave to prove in a warm place for an hour until it has roughly doubled in size.

I bought this metal loaf tin on my Fabulous Baker Brothers course, I thought I may as well have the right equipment!

Place the dough in the tin and slash the top. It deflated a bit at this point.

Bake in a preheated oven at 240 C for ten minutes then turn the oven down to 210 C and bake for another 30 minutes.

Cool on a cooling rack. I got a new bread bin for my birthday which is an excuse to make more bread, if you ask me!

Allow to cool and slice.

I'm sending this to Food 'n' Flix, hosted by Eliot's Eats.