Oh gosh...Yes man! Leave me alone...I like plenty butter, It's ok if the blasted thing leaking down meh hand and past meh elbow...

I am always understandably excited and forget to have a knife ready to cut into this bread as it pops out of the oven. There is an inherent satisfaction in the bursting open of a hot hops bread and watching the puff of steam rise towards your drooling mouth. Butter is the only crucial answer to your impatiently quivering lips - Slather it on and watch it melt a little before sealing the sandwich and hacking it up.

Penny Loaves or Hops were commercially baked in 1893 by John Alfred Rapsey and sold at penny apiece daily. The day-old loaves were sold at the bakery for halfpenny. Mr Rapsey was attributed with employing an old bread-making technique that he observed amongst the French Creole kitchens in Trinidad; the unusual crust and size of the dough roll was achieved by leavening the dough with an extract of the male hop flower. Originally, these fermented loaves were wrapped and baked in green banana leaves and then delivered with the baked leaves still encrusted on them. Can you imagine how immeasurably pleasurable it would be to have experienced this?

Advert at the J. A. Rapsey Bakery.

125 years later there are countless recipes available for our modern version of the hops bread. This recipe has been my annual Christmas Eve tradition for the past 13 years. Whether you bake these and wash the sandwiches down with a glass of cold sorrel or you have them at any time during the year, I can assure you that the memories made will be incomparable. 

Trini Hops Bread

Makes 12 full-sized Hops

2 cups warm water 

1 tbsp/1 packet instant yeast

1 tbsp brown sugar 

6 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (sifted) 

2 tsp salt 

½ cup warm milk plus ¼ cup for brushing the tops of hops before baking 

½ cup butter, softened

1. Measure out 1 cup of warm water and dissolve sugar. Add the yeast and do NOT stir. Cover and let sit for 5 minutes, unit foamy. (If the yeast doesn't do anything, throw it out and buy fresh yeast.) 
2. Add the salt to the flour and whisk through until well blended. Follow with rubbing the butter in with dough hook (or by hand) until well combined and resembles coarse crumbs. 
3. Pour the yeast mixture in and slowly add the rest of the warm water and warm milk. Knead until dough is smooth and elastic.
4. Shape it into a ball and place in a buttered bowl. Cover with a moist tea towel and let it sit for 1 - 1 1/2 hours, until it's doubled in size. 
5. Butter a 9” x 13” sheet pan. Punch the dough down (my favourite part of the method) and separate into halves until there are 12 pieces and form each one into balls and place on buttered sheet. 
6. Cover with the tea towel again and leave to rise for an hour. 
7. Preheat the oven to 375°F. Brush with milk and bake for 30-35 minutes, until honey brown and you’re butter and cheese ready. Immediately turn the hops out of the sheet pan and onto a rack to cool.