Sunday, May 1, 2016

Earth Mother Bakes Bread

These have sliced olives in the dough.
I've suddenly got into making bread. It takes about 5 minutes or less to make the dough and another 5 minutes to shape it before 30 minutes in a hot oven. You do need to allow for waiting time (about 3 hours for the first rising and another 20 minutes after its shaped). So if you have 10 minutes to spare over a 4 hour period it's so worth it.


DD only wants my homemade rolls now. She likes them with olives inside.

There are advantages to making your own bread:

1. It's cheaper. It costs less than 2GBP to buy the flour and instant dried yeast which yield about 24 rolls or three large loaves. I didn't factor in the teaspoon of salt per loaf and any other spices you want to add. I usually add some za'atar to the dough because we like our food savoury. And I didn't work out the cost of having the oven on for 50 minutes or the water used. Nor the cost of the washing up liquid. However, artisan bread in this country is about 3GBP per loaf so I still think it's cheaper.

2. You know exactly what's in your bread. No sugar or preservatives, food colouring or molasses for brown bread, or any other chemicals. Seriously take a look at the ingredients of a shop bought loaf - it's a list of about 15 items.

3. If you make rolls you eat less. Going back for another slice of bread and another seems less greedy than eating a third or fourth roll. Especially as there are only eight in a batch and I need to keep some for DD's lunchbox each day. I'm into making bread but I'm not going to do it every day!

4. It tastes better than shop bought unless you are buying designer bread from a small bakery.

5. You can also use this recipe for pizza bases.

Two rolls became one pizza blanca.


Recipe:

Mix 3 cups of flour, 1tspn of instant dried yeast, 1 tspn of salt and any other herbs or spices, in a mixing bowl.
Add 2 cups of warm water and mix with the handle of a spoon or fork until you have a cohesive dough.
Cover with plastic wrap and leave in a warm(ish) place for about 3 hours.
Divide into rolls or turn the whole batch onto a baking sheet for one loaf. You can use baking paper under the dough or lightly brush the tray with olive oil.
Wait 20 minutes for the dough to rise again while the oven heats up to about 180-200 degrees.
Bake for 30 minutes.
Wait at least five minutes before eating.

These came out the oven tonight. They have 1cup wholewheat flour/2cups white.


10 comments:

  1. Mmmmm yummy! I love baking bread and love the whole ritual of kneading it and watching it rise. It's so therapeutic xx

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    1. I know, and the smell is very comforting too.

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  2. You've inspired me with this post - I don't think I will be able to persuade my son to ditch his sliced bread, but we've been talking about making pizza for a long time, and this makes it sound easy :)

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    1. It really is. Go to You Tube and search for No Knead dough.

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  3. Is it really this simple? Sounds and looks delish. Well done Earth Mother.

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    1. It really is this easy. See no knead bread on You tube.

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  4. I've been making my own challah each Friday for several years. It's much less complicated than I thought. But I use the fresh yeast (comes in a cube here) and never dry. I recently decided to experiment with the dry - and your recipe came at just the perfect time! I'll let you know what happens.

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    1. I had a cube of the fresh yeast in my freezer and tried it last week - it didn't work at all. Maybe you can't freeze fresh yeast? Good luck woth the dried.

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  5. Oh I thought I commented on these last time! They look spectacular and am glad to see you're still making them on the post I just read!

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    1. I've used some of the pictures before. This was just a "I;m stil doing it," post.

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