First Bread

I agree with Rose Levy Beranbaum when she said it's almost harder to throw out a piece of bread than a piece of meat. Of course the meat probably cost more but bread is the staff of life and for me it has more memories attached to it.

If this is the first time you've made bread or you've had trouble in the past then this is the place to start and get motivated about making bread. It's easier than making desserts and once you get used to the planning aspect of it you won't find it time consuming.

Let's start with a rule. For reliable results and ease of troubleshooting use scales, preferably digital. If you don't have any then you're not serious about making bread and you shouldn't waste your time. Scales make your bread reproducible which is what we want. Weigh your water too because measuring jugs are off by quite a bit usually.

Ingredients All you need is flour, water, salt and yeast. I'll add a bit of honey or sugar in this recipe to make it foolproof (and no, if it fails for you it doesn't mean you're a fool).

Flour can range in protein (roughly speaking gluten) content from 8 to 14%. Check the side of the bag. 10% is a good one to start with. The sugar feeds the yeast in addition to the natural sugars in the wheat. The amount of water controls how sticky it is to work with and how tight the crumb is. 

Equipment Mixing bowl, clean bench, bread tin, sturdy spoon, clean hands, oven with thermometer.

This recipe will make one small loaf which should fit in a typical loaf pan e.g. a Baker's Secret one which is for baking a banana bread loaf or a lemon poppyseed loaf. It should hold 4 to 5 metric cups of water. If you don't have metric cups place your tin on the scales and tare them (set to zero), fill up your tin with water and place on scales and it should read between 1000 and 1250 grams. What's that in pounds you ask? Get with the rest of the world and go metric! Or, just press the button on the scales to convert. 2 pounds 3 ounces to 2 pounds 12 ounces roughly. I bought a cheap pan from Ikea before I could find nice bread tins which is about right, flimsy thin gauge material but it worked. If you don't want an overcooked crust on the base and sides and you've only got thin tins you could use two, one sitting inside the other.

Recipe

500g all-purpose unbleached white flour (don't bother with bread flour just yet)

1½ tsp instant yeast (½ Tbsp)

290 ml water  

1½  tsp salt

¼ tsp sugar or honey

If you've got a MIXER lucky you

Add flour to the mixing bowl.

Add yeast and water.

Mix with dough hook and splash ring on.

Mix for about 1 minute on "Min".

Once a rough dough is formed add the salt.

Mix on low speed for 2 minutes.

Scrape dough off hook and leave for 10 minutes with mixer head down in bowl so the splash ring forms a nice seal around the bowl. If you leave the head up the dough may dry out a bit depending on your environment.

Mix for 5 minutes on low speed.

If the motor struggles then turn to lower speed.

By hand, the therapeutic way to go.

Whisk salt into flour then whisk in yeast and sugar.

Add water to flour and mix with a wooden spoon.

Once it starts to become a dough take it out of the bowl and knead on a clean bench with hands for 1 minute.

Leave to rest on bench covered with the bowl for 15 minutes. This lets the gluten relax and become more extensible.

Knead for 5 minutes or until very smooth, should be as soft as a baby's bottom.

Both methods         

Check: take a tiny piece of dough and taste it for the salt level.

Lightly oil a bowl which is at least twice the volume of the dough.

Proving

Knead into a ball, place back into lightly oiled bowl and cover with oiled cling film to rise for 1 hour or more (depending on the temperature of your kitchen).

It should have doubled in size but don't worry about whether it's exactly half or not. (Bread is very forgiving and there is a large margin of error so don't be afraid!)

Knead and use fingertips to remove large air bubbles.

Shaping

Stretch to a rectangle smaller than the length of the tin.

Roll from the top down, pressing the roll slightly away from you after each roll to make it tight.

Pinch the seam together hard with index finger and thumb to make it stick.

Tuck in ends and do the same

Roll back and forth a bit and make sure it's a nice shape by pulling the skin in on the sides with the sides of your hands.

Place in lightly oiled or floured loaf tin. (if you're using a non stick pan you may find the oil works better.

Final rise

Cover with oiled cling film and let rise a little (1 inch in the centre) above tin, about 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 220°C after about 30 minutes of rising in tin.

Remove cling film and place in oven for 35 minutes at 220°C.

Remove from tin. 

Check colour and check the sound. 

The loaf should be nicely brown now on the top.

Hold it bottom up in clean cloth and knock on the bottom of the loaf. It should sound slightly hollow. If it sounds very dull it's undercooked.

Allow to cool completely on wire rack.

EAT the fruits of your labour!