Good evening, my name is Vashti and I am a recipebookoholic.

I have been in denial for a while now but I think it is time that I came clean, after all admitting is the first step to recovery, so they say! I have a recipe book addiction! There I said it, its out there, let the healing begin.......or not! 

Above is a photo of some of my recipe books. Yep those are all books and magazines containing 100s of recipes and I love every single one of them. (notice I said "some"!)

So many components make up a good recipe book and believe it or not I am quite fussy when it comes to buying one. In my mind if I look at the book there has to be amazing photos otherwise I will put it straight back on the shelf. The book has to be well written and I have to want to and be able to make the majority of the recipes that are in the book.

Living in Africa means that there are alot of ingredients that I can not get hold of and if I can so many are very expensive as they are imported. So I love it when I find a book that is pretty and full of recipes that I know that I can put together well. 

This is one of those books.

Shiny Happy People is by Neil Roake, he is South African! It has to be one of my favorite books as I know that I can make every recipe in it. And it is oh so pretty.
He has gone to all his friends houses and asked them for their favorite recipes. And then taken loads of awesome photos.

Through out the book there are quotes about food by famous people.

I want to share my most used recipe from his book with you. It is for these yummy seed bread rings.

Here's what you need........

4 cups of plain flour. Now I'm not a white bread person so I used stone ground organic whole wheat. But you don't have to, I'm just saying ;-)

1 teaspoon of sea salt.

1 packet of dry yeast. That's around 10g.

1 cup of milk.

1/2 cup water.

3 tablespoons olive oil.

Egg wash to coat the rings

And a few tablespoons of seeds. I use a mix of linseed, sunflower, pumpkin and sesame.

Place the flour,salt and yeast in a large bowl and mix.

Heat milk and water, not too much just so that it is warm. And then add the oil.

Pour wet into dry and mix to form dough. At this point I get my beloved KitchenAid out and use the dough hook. Knead for a few mins until smooth and elastic. Cover with damp tea towel and leave in warm place to rise. Takes about 1 1/2 hours.

Knock back and then take balls of dough, roll into sausages and form a ring, kinda like a bagel. Place on tray and brush with egg wash and sprinkle with seeds. Leave for about another 30 mins and then bake until golden.

Trust me on this one, you are gonna want to make them ASAP! Eat them warm with butter and honey and you will be in Heaven!

Enjoy. Love Vash x