Caramelised onion & cumin bread

If you love a bread packed with flavours, with every bite like a party going on in your mouth, I think this bread more than fits the bill.

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This easy tear and share bread is not too dissimilar to my chilli and onion bread but this incarnation has both ground cumin and toasted cumin seeds in the dough – along with chilli and slowly caramelised onions.

Spiced onion & chilli bread

For this version, follow my recipe here but omit the garlic, coriander, yoghurt and gram flour, and instead add 1 rounded tablespoon toasted cumin seeds and use about 400ml water to make the dough. You can scatter seeds on top or leave plain.

A pre-ferment for flavour

I often make this with a pre-ferment, which adds even more depth of flavour.

For this, mix 80g of the flour with the spices, a generous pinch of yeast, and 80ml of the water. Give it a stir and cover.

Leave it for a day or two, after which it will have fermented enticingly, and add this batter to rest of the flour and the yeast from the recipe, continuing with the rest of the ingredients as in the recipe.

Caramelised onion and cumin bread

Smaller balls are great here

I often make smaller balls with this particular bread and pop them into a deep 9-10″ cake tin to prove (as in the photo below), but you can go for larger balls or bake either as one large loaf or two smaller loaves.

dough ready to prove

You can go for a shiny finish by brushing over some egg before baking, but I quite like a matt finish.

Caramelised onion and cumin bread

A cooling cream cheese accompaniment

I like to serve this with a bowl of cream cheese mixed with some of the cooked onions (I reserve about a tablespoon or so, that I chop fairly finely) and a little chilli scattered over.

Caramelised onion and cumin bread

Author: Philip

Finalist on Britain’s Best Home Cook (BBC Television 2018). Published recipe writer with a love of growing fruit & veg, cooking, teaching and eating good food. View all posts by Philip