Recipe: Bread - it's not that difficult really

Bread - the staff of life or so they say. Human beings have been making it for thousands of years but most bread these days is bought from a shop and contains things other than flour, water, yeast and salt.

Maybe once I week I'll get the urge to make some bread, especially if I wake early. I work from home so can interleave my bread-making with my job which is nice. I can be working while my dough is proving and so on. Bread isn't difficult at all really and the only time you actually spend physically making it is the kneading which takes about 10-15 minutes. The rest of the time is simply waiting for it to prove, or waiting for it to bake, or waiting for it to cool down enough so you can slather butter on a big, thick, warm slice and gobble it down.

Ingredients

400g Strong white or brown flour (or you can do a 50/50 mix of both)
2 teaspoons of salt
1 7g packet of yeast
Luke warm water

Method

First of all, fire up your oven to 230 degrees (Gas mark 9). Bread needs to be baked hot. Put the flour in a large bowl and put the salt in to the left-hand side of the bowl, and put the yeast in to the right-hand side of the bowl. Too much salt kills yeast so we keep them separate until the water is added. Add water to the flour gradually, mixing the dough with a spoon. When it starts to bind into a floury dough, get your hands in and bring it together, getting as much off the sides of the bowl as you can. You want a really soft, sticky dough. Dump the dough out onto a lightly oiled work surface and start to knead it. If the dough starts to stick too much to your hands or the work surface, sprinkle a little more oil. Knead the dough for a minimum of 10 minutes. Clean the bowl and oil lightly. Ball the dough up and place in the bowl. Cover with clingfilm and leave to double in size at normal room temperature. It normally takes about an hour.

When the dough has been proved, lightly flour a baking tray.Flatten the dough out and roll it up like a swiss roll. Place onto the tray with the seam facing down. Cover with lightly oiled cling-film and let the dough prove until doubled in size again. Take off the cling-film and dust the dough with flour. Place a tray containing a little water on the bottom shelf of the oven and place the bread into the oven on the middle shelf and bake for 35-40 minutes. Remove from the oven and leave to cool. It really is that easy. Honest.