Okay so maybe it might be quicker to pop to the shops and buy a sliced loaf or even a crusty loaf ‘baked in store specially for you’, but we don’t think anything can top baking your own bread. Not only is there an element of stress relief involved but it tastes infinitely better and you get to fill your accommodation with the heavenly smell of baking bread. So what if it takes roughly 3 hours? You’re a baking genius.
This recipe is from James Morton’s bread book ‘Brilliant Bread’ and is our go to when we want proper thick bread for toast. We haven’t adapted it at all, it’s perfect the way it is.
Ingredients
500g Strong white flour (we use white bread flour from Lidl)
10g salt
7g instant yeast
350g tepid water (tepid is just a spot cooler than lukewarm)
Method
Weigh out your flour into a bowl and add the salt to one side and the yeast to another. Don’t let the salt and yeast touch when you combine them into the flour.
Add the water and mix until it forms a dough. Try and incorporate all the flour into the dough.
Cover with Clingfilm or a damp tea towel and leave in a warm area for about 30 or 40 minutes and has at least doubled in size.
Wet your fingers on one hand and slide them between the dough and the bowl. Fold the dough over itself, turn the bowl a quarter of a turn and repeat until the dough is smooth and the air is removed.
Cover the bowl with cling film or a damp tea towel again and leave for an hour in a warm place.
Flour a surface and scrape the dough out onto it. Take hold of two opposite sides and stretch them out then fold them back into the middle. Turn the dough and repeat with each side and corners.
Fold the dough over itself in half and tuck the sides over and roll lightly to tighten the dough and remove the seam.
Put on a heavily floured board and leave to rise for an hour.
Put into a lined loaf tin and score the top in three diagonal lines with a sharp knife.
Bake at 210 degrees for 40 minutes then put onto a wire rack to cool.