Recipes / Blog

Easy loaf recipe 21 Jun 18

One of the loveliest things about making bread is that the recipes tend to be very adaptable. You can mix up the proprtions of flour to include rye or spelt or any other bread flour, as well as add nuts, seeds, spices or fruit or all of those things.

This is a simple loaf that uses a mixture of white and wholemeal flour as well as oats. It's chewy and nutty, and make particularly tasty toast.
 
Preheat the overn to 200 c

In a large bowl, mix together the following dry ingredients:
 
400g strong wholemeal bread flour
200g strong white bread flour
100g oats
7g yeast (yeast often comes in handy 7g pouches)
2 tsps salt
2 tsps sugar
 
When mixed, slowly pour in around 500ml warm water. The dough might seem very wet and difficult to work with, but as a general rule, wetter dough makes better bread. If you like, you can use dough scrapers and the beginning of the kneading process – before long it will be much easier to handle.
 
Kneading the dough comes next. This will develop the gluten, making the dough stretchy and more elastic and ultimately giving you a soft and chewy loaf of bread. 
 
To knead, lightly dust the work surface with some plain flour, and put the dough on top. Stretch it away from you with one hand and fold it back over the top towards you. Repeat this process again and again for around 10 minutes, or until it’s lovely and soft and bounces back when you poke it with a finger.
 
Put the dough in a large bowl and cover with a clean tea towel. Leave it to rise for 1.5 hours in a warm place.
 
After it’s risen, knock it back (knock the air out) and shape the dough into whatever shape you like. Lightly dist with flour, and gently score with a knife. Alternatively you can use a proofing bowl, which we did for the loaf in the photo. Just make sure you dust with flour before you put the dough in to the bowl - so that the floured surface is touching the basin of the bowl.
 
Leave to rise again in a warm place for another hour.
 
Move your dough on to a floured baking tray. (If the dough is in a basket, turn it out first).

When you put the loaf in, you can also pour some cold water into an empty roasting tin that's sitting at the bottom of your oven just before you shut the door – the steam from this will haelp make a crusty and shiny crust.

Bake for around 30 minutes in the preheated oven.Take it out of the oven, and turn it over. Knock on the bottom of the loaf – if it sounds hollow, it’s finished cooking. If not, put it back in the oven upside down and keep on checking until it does sound hollow. Your house will be smelling heavenly. 

 
 
 
 

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