bread – theborrowers

‘If thou tastest a crust of bread, thou tastest all the stars and all the heavens … ‘

Robert Browning

Homemade bread can be the greatest bread ever! And making it is therapeutic too! You decide what goes in to it, so for the savvy shoppers and their frugal friends it’s an excellent choice. What’s best is you can proudly produce your own gorgeous fresh loaf for less than half the price of a shop bought one. So whilst you will never be able to make it for the price of a mass produced loaf – but why would you want to ! It will be so much less than buying an artisan one from the shops and you get all the pleasure out of it!

All you need is scales, an oven and a bowl!

You can use an electric bread maker, knead by hand or use your mixer with the dough hook (we must admit to using the Kitchen Aid frequently). And, it is possible to fit bread making into a busy life or the working week. The hands on time is not as much as you think and the rewards of a fresh loaf are more than worth the effort.

This is how we do it …

Flour – as Dan Lepard says ‘go cheap on white flour and expensive on the rest’ White flour is all of excellent quality so buy confidently from Lidl. But for the rest, the granary, rye and wholemeal, choose wisely and invest in a flour where the milling processes has protected the grain and its flavour.
Yeast – fresh or dried the results compare. (BB1 finds it easier to use fresh, BB2 dried!) You can obtain fresh yeast free in most supermarkets. Keep it in the fridge and its a doddle to use.
If you can, use the sponge method – whilst an extra stage, it is not difficult and produces bread with a superior flavour and softer texture.
Enjoy the hand knead ! Its just 10 minutes and good for you … think slow living, mindfulness and enjoy.
Turn your oven up as high as it will go. Try and get as close to 260 degrees as you can.
Put a roasting tin in the bottom of the oven and fill with water to create steam and mimic the steam ovens of professional bakers. When the dough hits the hot oven it will puff up – this is the Oven Spring. The yeast in your dough sense the coming heat and panics! Fermentation and respiration speed up and a final belch of carbon dioxide is released that lifts the dough for the last time. The steam from the water keeps the atmosphere in the oven moist and the crust soft – to allow this final rise. It takes about 10 minutes so don’t open the oven during this time. Your oven spring is a good measure of your crumb, so its worth taking these two steps seriously!
After the first 10 minutes, check your bread. Open the oven, turn the bread to get an even colour. If you like a crust all over, take the bread out of the tin and return the bread to the oven upside down to crisp up the bottom. If you don’t think your bread is cooked, keep it in and bake for longer. Turn the temperature down if the crust is looking too brown – the worst that can happen is a slightly thicker crust – and there is nothing wrong with that!
Store your bread carefully … it slices with ease if you can let it cool -something we frequently struggle to do! Don’t keep it in the fridge, wrap it in paper and store somewhere cool. Homemade bread freezes beautifully and there’s little need to refresh!