I was listening to an episode of the excellent podcast, Off Menu, when one of the hosts mentioned marmite garlic bread from Yard Sale Pizza in London. Off Menu is a great podcast hosted by two UK comedians, who talk to other comedians and other folks about their dream menus. It’s really funny, but also really committed to talking about great food. And really committed to the important debating whether meals should begin with poppadoms or bread. It’s a great podcast, you should check it out.
When they mentioned marmite garlic bread, I was like a moth to a flame. Since it’s a bit tricky to get to the pizza place they were talking about, I decided to try to recreate it myself. The idea seemed genius - marmite is salty and deeply umami and it’s typically spread on buttered toast. It seemed perfect to accompany garlicky, cheesy bread. It has a long running ad campaign in the UK that everyone either loves or hates. I’m not really sure why anyone would hate it, but I can see that it’s standard application, spread on buttered toast, might be odd for some folks. It’s a yeast based spread, with rich, brothy, salty flavour - not unlike undiluted beef stock paste. It has that meatiness of stock, without actually having any meat in it. This might be jarring to those expecting raspberry jam as a standard toast topping. But that flavour is an excellent boost to lots of different savoury dishes, especially for those trying to boost umami-meatiness to vegetarian or vegan dishes. Think soy sauce, worcestershire sauce, nutritional yeast - marmite is in this tasty zone.
Marmite isn’t something I always keep in my pantry, partly because it’s harder to find in Canada. I had to go to a couple grocery stores to find it. If you have a local british import store that’s a good bet, but many well stocked supermarkets have it too. It’s just not quite ubiquitous here.
This marmite garlic bread is a sort of garlic bread-pizza hybrid. If making the pizza dough is too much, you can follow the same idea, spreading your marmite garlic butter thickly on a loaf of French bread. Sprinkle with cheese and toast open-faced under a broiler until the cheese is bubbly and the bread smells incredible.
Note: dough will make 4 times as much as you need for one batch of garlic bread. You have now received the gift of extra pizza dough. Stash the extra three doughballs in the freezer for emergency pizza, quick focaccia or your next batch of marmite garlic bread.
marmite garlic bread
inspired by Yard Sale Pizza by way of Off Menu
dough
Adapted from Sip and Feast
406 grams bread flour
2 grams instant yeast
8 grams salt
4 grams sugar
260 grams cold water
1 tbs olive oil
1 tbs milk powder (optional, but will help with colour development)
Place all ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook. Mix on low until a dough forms. Increase speed to medium-high and knead for 5 more minutes. Turn the dough out onto a work surface and hand knead for 2-3 more minutes. This is a fairly wet dough - I like to oil my hands to knead, rather than adding more flour to the dough. Place dough in an oiled bowl covered with cling wrap for 40 minutes. Divide dough into 4 balls; refrigerate for 12-24 hours in oiled bowls tightly covered. At this point you can freeze any dough you aren’t using right away, you only need 1 ball for this recipe (unless you want to make a bigger batch of garlic bread).
marmite garlic bread assembly
3 tbs butter
1 tbs marmite
2 cloves garlic grated or finely minced
1 ½ cups grated mozzarella
¼ cup grated parmesan
olive oil
chopped parsley
Pull a dough ball out of the fridge, and sit out for 1 hour in its bowl. After the dough has rested for an hour, heat the oven to the highest temperature your oven will reach (for me it was 500). If you have a pizza stone, put it in the oven now. If not, you can use an inverted baking sheet, which will hold a little extra heat right under your bread and help with crispiness.
Generously cover the bottom of a quarter bun pan (9” x 12.5”) with olive oil. Place a dough ball on sheet pan and gently stretch it along the length of the pan. It will be very springy and reluctant to stretch. Cover with some of the pan oil and drape with plastic wrap. As the dough sits, it will relax and stretch more easily; every 10-15 minutes come back and give it a bit more stretching until it’s stretched nearly the full length of the pan without shrinking back. This will take 30-40 minutes.
While the dough is resting, make marmite-garlic butter: combine butter, garlic and marmite in a small saucepan and heat over low until melted, stir to combine. Set aside.
Once your dough is ready, drizzle or brush the butter over the dough evenly. Sprinkle dough evenly with cheeses. Bake garlic bread for 10-15 minutes. The bake time will depend on how hot your oven gets. The bread is done when the cheese is bubbly and golden brown and the bread is well browned around the edges. Let the garlic bread cool in the pan for a few minutes until any oil in the pan has reabsorbed into the bread. Slice the bread into fingers, sprinkle with parlsye and serve immediately.
