MAKE YOUR BREAD BY YOURSELF

HOME

Have you ever tried to make bread at home? It’s really amusing. It’s the same as to be children again, dip your hands in flour, make everything white and feel the dough forming in our hands.

It’s easier than ever, even though you won’t see bread the first time. But if you wish to try don’t give up, second time it will be better.

If you have a bread machine it’ll be easier to make bread.

If you want to try you’ll find here a simple recipe, the one about olive bread, fragrant and tasty.

You need:

g.500 white flour, better is Manitoba flour, with wheat that comes from a country of Canada named Manitoba, it has more gluten and rises better. You find it in the supermarket

natural yeast (easy to use is the dry yeast, you find it in herbalist’s shop or in organic supermarkets,) n. 2 tea spoons, or if you prefer using brewer’s yeast you can use 1 small packet for g. 500 flour.

3 or 4 tea spoons of sugar (or 1 spoon of acacia honey, if you like)

5 spoons oil (g.30) – 1 spoon for every pound of flour

g. 280 water (1 glass and ¼ )

with all these ingredients you’ll get 6 or 8 sandwiches

if you can use a bread machine put all ingredients inside it but not all the water, let the machine start, check the dough if it’s too dry and fill thenwater little by little. Maybe you don’t need all the water, the dough hasn’t to be too wet, you can see it.

It’s the same if you make bread by hand. Dough is ready for rising after you have got a soft ball not too sticky, in 10 minutes, more or less. Leave it in the bawl which you’ll cover with a transparent film and roll a table cloth around it, it needs to keep warm in a warm place, near a radiator or the fireplace. You can also heat the oven to 50°, then switch it off and put the bowl inside, dough must rise for 1 hour.

After the first rising knead it again for some minutes (dough must have doubled its volume and be soft and dry) and give it the shape you prefer, a loaf or some rolls (you can get 6 or 8 rolls from that dough).

Let it rise again on the baking tray with baking paper (cover your bread with baking paper if you have to roll a table cloth around it) or put the baking tray inside the oven again, preheated 50° for 1 hour.

With your bread machine select baguette menu. This menu makes the machine knead and rise but not bake). When the machine has finished, knead dough by hand for a little to give it the shape you prefer and go ahead with the second rise in the oven.

Preheat the oven to 200° (you have to remove the dough from the oven first) then bake it for 30 minutes.

Leave the bread cool on a grid to make it dry and you’ll have your fragrant and tasty bread made by yourself.

If you wish to make your bread using sourdough, you remove a piece of dough, 100 gr. more or less, to be keepen in fridge in a bowl with a film on top even for a week. The day before using it add some flour like this, a part of sourdough, a part of flour half of a part of lukewarm water. Knead all together and leave the dough to rise for minimum 6 hours, no more in the fridge.

Before adding sourdough to the ingredients of your new bread, soften it with some lukewarm water. When you add new yeast, it shall be less than the usual quantity for 500 gr. of flour.