Guest Recipe: Hecklerspray's Onion Bread

I asked Hecklerspray editor Stuart Heritage to 'Slut up' his famous onion bread recipe (when I say famous, I mean that he tweets about bread more than anything else). Being the lovely guy that he is, he scribbled it out in an email for us. See? Domestic Sluttery isn't just for girls.

Onion Bread.

This is the greatest bread you will ever eat. That’s not an exaggeration. If anything it’s not enough of an exaggeration. This bread will make you taller, cure all present and future illnesses and force everyone on the planet to fall hopelessly in love with you. There, that’s enough of an exaggeration.

It’s delicious enough by itself, but I’ve found that this bread will create perhaps the most delicious bacon sandwich in all of history. Obviously most of you reading this will be women, so feel free to substitute the bacon with hummus or a tampon or a copy of Heat magazine or whatever it is you people like instead of bacon.

This recipe might work in a bread machine, but it’s better by hand because a) there’s nothing like eating bread you’ve worked to make, b) the texture will be less crumpety and c) you won’t have to perform one of those ridiculous colonoscopy things to get the wire mixer out from the middle of the loaf afterwards.

475g bread flour

2 tablespoons butter

2 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1.5 teaspoons fast action dried yeast

275ml warm water

2 tablespoons dried milk

1 chopped onion

In a mixing bowl, combine the butter with the flour, working it through with your fingertips until it looks like you’ve got a bowl of fine breadcrumbs.

Throw in the rest of the dry ingredients - and the onions - and slowly add the water while mixing with a wooden spoon. You want the ingredients to combine into a stiff dough - too much water and you’ll end up with a sloppy mess, which is no good to anybody.

Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead well for five or so minutes until it becomes smooth and elastic. Stick it back in the bowl, cover it lightly with clingfilm and leave it somewhere warm for 45 minutes.

Take the clingfilm off, punch the air out of the dough, tip it out and knead it again, before returning it to the bowl. Leave for another 45 minutes, and then repeat this step all over again.

After the 45 minutes are done, knock the dough back and knead it a third time before placing it in a greased 2lb loaf tin. Clingfilm it back up and leave it for half an hour. Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 200C.

Now, finally, you can cook the sod. Dust the dough with flour and put it the oven for 30 minutes (or slightly less if, like mine, your oven seems to be powered by a mixture of nuclear fission and dragon farts). Remove from the tin and leave to cool. DO NOT EAT THE BREAD INSTANTLY. It may smell like the most beautiful thing in the world, but you’ll burn your mouth quite severely. Experience talking.