Bread

[lord_seagrave]

Little Lord Seagrave loves bread (although he calls it "dead", which really upsets elderly shoppers in Fortnum's..) and so I've gotten back into bread making.

 

I was thrilled when I learned that kneading wasn't necessary to make great bread, as I loathe getting my hands covered in sticky dough.

 

So, my method:

 

200g wholemeal spelt flour in a bowl with 5g rock salt and 5g quick yeast, and a whopping 450g of warm water.

 

Give it a good stir, cover and in a draft-free warmish place for a good couple of hours (all afternoon usually).

 

It'll froth like billy-o, and then collapse and separate and generally look and smell deeply unpleasant.

 

When that's done, stick 400g of white bread flour in, and fold it in, scraping down the sides of the bowl as you go. Don't mix it too hard, and slosh a good couple of tablespoons of olive oil around the sides as the dough comes away from the sides.

 

Now the clever bit - shake the bowl around and around, so that the dough comes together into a ball, and the oil coats the whole ball (including, with a bit of jiggling, the bottom).

 

Cover it and put it back in the warm place to prove for an hour.

 

Prepare the container in which you're going to be baking it by giving it a wipe inside and around the rim with oil and dusting the whole thing with flour.

 

Hopefully the dough has now doubled in size. Perform your bowl jiggle again (perhaps with the assistance of a splosh more oil) to deflate the dough, and bring it together into a ball.

 

Dump it into the baking container, and dust the top with plenty of flour.

 

Prep the oven by heating it to about 230C. If it's an electric oven, put a Pyrex dish of water on a low shelf. To get a good deep crust on your loaf, you need moisture both inside and out whilst it's baking.

 

Stick it back into the warm place to prove, and after an hour (perhaps slightly less if it's a hot day) when it's puffed up and teetering over the rim of the container carefully put it in the oven.

 

Give it twenty minutes on hot, then turn the temperature down to about 180C for another twenty minutes.

 

If, like me, you are using a glazed ceramic bowl to bake your bread, you might want to usher it out of the bowl at this stage and give it another 5-10 minutes directly on the shelf to dry out the bottom.

 

It might seem laborious, but the results, with practice are great.

 

Edited August 26, 2015 by lord_seagrave

[lord_seagrave]

[robbiep]

The end result looks pretty good !

 

My pet hate with is all the kneading too, so will definitely be giving that a try. Thanks for the method.

[amateur]

I just load up the breadmaker before I turn in at night and wake up in the morning to the smell of fresh-baked bread - no kneading with that, either!

 

Nice looking loaf though, Duncan.

 

It is gratifying when your young kids ( or in my case, grand-kids ) prefer your bread to any other.

[nicholiath]

Have you added calpol and brufen to the mix?? he he

[lord_seagrave]

Have you added calpol and brufen to the mix?? he he

I should do.

 

Little Lord Petri Dish seems to be going through a bottle a week at the moment!

 

LS

[la bala]

I have the butter and jam, just need one of them, they look, I will have just one more round

[bruno22rf]

For the posher "Jamie Oliver" version-use a large "Bad Boy" bowl and wock tholt-dont forget to "fire" the yeast in then add every imaginable pwicy herb you can think of.