Bread Obsessed!

Recently I have decided to rekindle my love of baking my own bread. When I was younger I had made bread by hand a few times and I have helped my mum using her bread machine. The memory of it has really stuck with me. Whether its the smell that blossoms throughout the house, of the warm starchy dough baking or the feel of the stringy, sticky but firm mess being kneaded. Either way bread has always been something I have enjoyed making.

What made me to decide to go back to baking bread?

I think being a student and now having my own kitchen I already wanted to explore cooking and baking further, and be able to make the most of money. That and recently I have become more and more addicted to BBC's The Great British Bake Off, with Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry. I think I probably became mesmerised by Hollywood's ability at baking bread. For my birthday I received Paul's new book 'Bread' based on the  new TV series. So from all this really I decided it was time to get out the yeast, flour and oil!

So a couple of weeks  back, I started by making a basic bloomer (recipe courtesy of Hollywood).

Recipe: 

500g Strong White Flour

10g Salt

7g Dried Yeast

40ml Olive Oil  (Sunflower oil is fine, I used sunflower oil for the first time...by accident) 

320ml Cool Water

Of course, these are always rough guides, using my Poundland cheap scales makes it difficult to get exact measurements anyway. 

Now I am not going to give you all the details of making the perfect loaf, mine are nowhere near perfect yet but they do taste scrummy! Instead I will give you a basic run through of what I did:

I weighed the flour, then salt and then the yeast. When putting everything in the bowl I made sure that the yeast and salt where separate.
I then added the oil and some of the water (Note: You don't want to add the water all in one go as you may not need all of the water stated)
THEN MIX!!! And I do not mean mix with a mixer or wooden spoon, you need to put your hands into the bowl and mix it, not only is that the fun of it but it also creates a better mixture.

Then knead. You can do this with a floured or oiled surface, I attempted oiled the first time and ended up using flour anyway.

Proove for few hours depending on the room temp. I just placed a tea towel over the bowl, it took longer than expected the first time so put it near the heater to try and speed it up... which didn't really do anything!

Knock the air out of the bread with your knuckles, and shape the dough.
I placed the loaf on a oiled tray and the first time added flour for assured prevention against sticking. And then proove again for an hour.
Now Paul Hollywood says to prepare for baking by brushing water over the loaf and then sprinkling on  some flour, I didn't fancy the flour so just got a sharp knife and made a few couple of cm deep slits in the bread. The bread will stretch where you cut them to create the classic look. I kind of failed at making mine look equal. 

And then Bake... Hollywood says to bake for 25 minutes on 220 degrees celsius and then 10-15 mins on 200. However I found after 25 minutes my bread was going a bit brown. It sounded hollow when I tapped on the bottom so I took it out of the oven, restrained myself for a few minutes and then got the clover I had in the fridge and watched it slowly melt as I spread it on a nice thick loaf of home made bread. 

Now the first time I made bread in a while was far from perfect, so this weekend  I decided it was time to try again. 

This time I made sure I used Olive Oil instead of Sunflower Oil, but it does not really make any difference. Also when I kneaded, the first time I wanted to attempt kneading with oil like Hollywood says but that did not go too well. So this time I started with flour, but it made the mixture too dry, so I went back to oil and it worked! First round of Prooving was a bit more successful too, I used clingflim instead to go over the bowl and I think it must of been warmer. Second round of Prooving, was maybe too successful! I went out and it inflated to a huge mass of dough. I tried to knock a little air out as to decrease the size, and reshaped it, slit it (Still not very even spaced across the bread) and popped it into the oven. This time I reduced the oven temperature and put it on for the 25 mins. After 25 mins I think I put it on for a little bit longer, but either my oven has a temperature gauge of its own or it just does not need so long to cook bread! I also ensured I did not use flour on the tray as it makes it worse to clean off... plus it does not really need it. Also I made sure I started earlier in the day, when baking break the prooves take several hours, the first time I underestimated that time, so was baking and eating bread at gone midnight!

All in all, baking bread is a very enjoyable experience, its smells amazing, feels amazing and even better, tastes amazing! I am hoping to continue my baking bread adventure soon too! I have some brown bread flour I may substitute into the recipe instead.

So if you have never baked bread before, do so! Don't be afraid to fail, it takes practice to make perfection :D

Below are the rest of the pictures of my second attempt!