This recipe is for anybody who wants to eat healthier bread...
First of all...
Don't try to save money on flour. Never buy the cheapest one. What you're looking for is a strong bread flour suitable for hand baking. If the flour is white, your bread will be bigger, nicer, it's surface will be glossy and smooth. BUT: white flour contains much less nutrients than brown flour. If you want a healthy option (which you should, since you're about to bake 'your daily bread'), go for spelt, rye, or at least wholemeal wheat flour. If interested, read more about flour here. To make your bread perfect, buy an organic flour (applies to other ingredients as well...).
Ingredients:
1. Flour - 800g (find your favorite - I usually use a mix of 500g strong stoneground wholemeal wheat Tesco flour with 300g Doves Farm organic rye flour).
2. Yeast - I'm using dried fast action yeast from Sainsbury's. One sachet (7g) is enough.
3. Water - 500ml
4. Salt - 1tbsp
5. Olive oil - 2tbsp. Make sure you are using an extra virgin, preferably organic one...
6. Other ingredients are up to you. Usually I'm adding cummin seed, basil, spring onions, herbs de provence, etc. You can try boiled and mashed potatoes as well... Don't be afraid to combine and improvise. Find your favorite taste and flavor. This is also a fantastic opportunity to vary your bread. Here is almost everything I'm going to use tonight...
Method:
1. Pour 50ml warm water in a large bowl. Perhaps you need the largest one you have. Put the yeast in it to dissolve and activate. Do not disturb it for some 10 minutes.
2. While waiting for your yeast and water to become inseparable friends, get your scales ready, mix the rest of the water with all your ingredients except the flour (I use something similar to what a barman would use to do this job).
3. Enable your flour to become friends with dissolved yeast. Brief rendezvous is enough. Add the liquid stuff to the bowl.
4. Wash your hands. Rinse the soap as much as you can. You don't want to feel the soap more than basil, do you?
5. I was serious. GO TO THE SINK AND WASH YOUR DIRTY HANDS!!!
6. Mix it. The hardest part of the job. Mostly because you have to guess the right consistence of your dough. It can't be very tough, but it has to keep it's shape. After couple of failures you'll be fine. To make it even more complicated, different types of flour need different amount of water to create the same consistence of dough. Practice will do... Depending on the type of flour you have used, it should look like this:
7. Now, cover the bowl with a clean tea towel. Clean I said, by which I didn't mean the one you've just grabbed. You need to let your dough rest in a quiet and warm place. Depending on the temperature, this is going to take some time, so read a few chapters in your book, browse the Internet (by the way, have you ever been to my website? ;) ) or do something else.
8. Ups, your dough has almost doubled during the last hour! Fantastic. That's what we wanted. Let's knead it now. This is the most difficult part of the job since it needs practice. See the picture to give you an idea of the process...
Your aim is to make the most part of your bread's surface nice and smooth. To achieve that, you sort of slide the dough on the surface while rotating it. As I said, this needs practice. A lot of practice... And a lot of a flour to separate your hands and your dough... Now, shape your bread into preferred shape (round or oval, it's up to you).
9. Sit the bread into a baking tin covered with a baking paper (doesn't have to be organic ;) ), cover it again and leave to rest again.
10. In the meanwhile, turn your oven on. Set the temperature to 250'C. Your bread needs to grow again now. It's size when you're putting it into the oven is almost it's final size. This requires some timing which again depends on practice.
11. Before putting your bread into the oven, wash it's surface with small amount of water - use a brush to do the job. Bake for about 30 minutes till it is dark brown.
12. Now, take the bread out of the oven and place it on a grid. I have two of them in the oven, which is very convenient for this purpose. If you leave it to cool down sitting in the baking tin, the bottom of the bread will be wet and not very pleasantly looking... Wash the bread again - this will make the crust even more crusty.
13. I recommend to eat the first bites with melting butter on it. There's nothing better than this (if you followed my instructions carefully)...
Any experiences? Suggestions? Advices? Go ahead, post a comment!
Happy baking...
