Bread making (

This started as a lockdown thing, I got for my birthday a food mixer. Now I make a loaf twice a week. Here’s how and what I’ve learnt.
 

Ingredients:

500g strong flour

Sachet of dried yeast

300 mm warm water

2 oz butter

Salt

I start by microwaving the butter to melt it in a Pyrex measuring jug which then I fill with the warm water, so to just over the 300 mm line and add salt. Everything then goes into the food mixer with the dough hook for 10 minutes.  

I get the best results from half white flour and half granary. Wessex Mill Six Seeds or Cobber are nice if you have a stockist or it is available direct online; I also use Sainsbury’s white, Allinson or Hovis granary.  I find wholemeal doesn’t want to rise. 

If when mixed the dough sticks stubbornly to the bowl and your fingers, it wants a sprinkling of flour; if it comes out too easily and leaves the bowl and dough hook virtually clean, it’s a tad too dry and won’t rise as well.  

The dough goes in a proving basket for about 35-40 minutes at 40 degrees. A low oven in winter and you can leave it out on the side in warmer weather. It wants to double in size and 80-90% fill the proving basket. While that’s happening, grease your baking tin before you forget. 

I don’t think there’s anything special about the organic material to forms the proving basket, but it does have an elasticated cotton cover that stops the dough forming a crust. 

Ideally the dough wants to be a squishy elastic texture. Knead it 5 times, called knocking back, and shape it to go in the baking tin. You’re meant to stretch or stress the top side of the dough outwards with the sides of your thumbs. Run a sharp knife over the top of the dough - if you’ve got it right, the cuts will open up before your eyes.  

Now the next stage is all about pace and duration.  You want the dough to rise in the tin, and start billowing out as it rises. My rule is 35-40 minutes at 35 degrees in the oven.  You don’t want too much rise, and you don’t want it to happen too fast either.  To begin with, I was finding it didn’t rise enough and when baked came out heavy and dense.  I don’t think that was down to the rigour of kneading or the water temperature, I think it was because the dough was too dry. 

When it’s risen, leave where it is and it’s time to adjust the oven. My Zanussi oven has a bread baking setting that runs for an hour and works well. Alternatively, and this is what my bread book says to do, whack the oven up to to maximum and when it reaches that after say 10 minutes, drop it down to 180 degrees and bake for another 20 minutes. 

Don’t leave the bread in the tin too long or you’ll get a damp bottom; if it doesn’t want to come out, let it cool for five minutes and try again. You can dry off a damp bottom in the oven for a couple of minutes.  I then wrap up in wax paper. I find it keeps about 3 days.