Fresh Bread

Place the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl. Mix them together and form a well in the middle.

Add the warm water and start mixing using your hands.

Once all of the flour has been taken up into your dough ball, transfer it to your work surface and start kneading.

After a minimum of 10 minutes kneading you should notice that the texture of the dough has changed. Rather than the lumpy rough dough you started with, the ball should now be smooth and silky.

Once you have finished kneading and you have a nice round ball of dough, Put it back into the mixing bowl and cover it with cling film. After this, leave the bowl somewhere warm for two hours in order to allow the dough to rise.

After the two hours you should now see that the dough is considerably larger that when you put it into the bowl. Now, lightly flour your work surface and turn the dough out onto it for the second round of kneading.

The purpose here is to lightly knead the dough and shape it so that it ends up in the shape of a bread loaf when it finishes rising for the second time.

Once you are finished shaping the dough, cover a baking tray with a good layer of flour. Place the dough in the centre of the tin and cover it with oiled cling film and put it back in the warm spot to rise for another 45 minutes to an hour.

About 10 to 15 minutes before the rising time is up, preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

After the full time has passed the dough should now be about the size and shape of a full sized loaf of bread. Remove the cling film and put the tin in the oven for 30 minutes.

Once the 30 minutes has elapsed, take the bread out of the oven and transfer it to a bread board or wire rack to cool before enjoying at your leisure.

Notes

Kneading bread, why do we do it? Well the act of using the heal of your hand to work the dough causes the protein molecules in the flour to stretch out and tangle together. This tangled mass is then better able to trap the gas produced by the yeast while the dough is left to rise which in turn leads to the bread having a light and fluffy texture.

A spray bottle works best for creating a fine coating of oil on the cling film but you can also use a paper towel dipped in olive oil to achieve the same result.

Lining the baking tray with flour prevents the bread from sticking so be generous. It’s far easier to scrape of the excess flour from the bottom of your bread loaf then it is to fix the hole in the crust that will eventuate if the bread sticks.