'No-knead' overnight bread

[More pics at the foot of this post]

No knead and undercover*

Ingredients:
600g Dove's strong wholemeal flour
100g strong white flour
7g salt
500ml water
5g fresh yeast or 3g of dried active yeast
50g olive oil (optional)

Method:
Place the dry ingredients into a mixing bowl, make a well in the top and add the yeast. Pour roughly 100g of water over the yeast and gently stir (saves having to wash the jug) to dissolve the yeast - then add the rest of the water plus the olive oil if using.

Mix the dough roughly - using either your hand or a table knife - just until it's mixed together. If you've done this in a food storer, just clip the lid on and leave it on your worktop until you're ready to go to the next step. Leave it either overnight or for at least 8 hours. 

When you're ready to proceed, tip it out onto the worktop, stretch and fold it several times.  You might find it easier to work with a scattering of flour - or, if you don't want to add more flour to the dough, pour a little vegetable oil over the dough to make it easier to handle. If it's too wet for your liking, make a note to yourself to add less liquid next time.

The rolls in the pic above - I  divided the dough into 12 pieces and formed them into rolls, each weighing about 100g.

I huddled these together on some baking parchment, covered them with a roasting tray and left them to rise.

I then baked them at 220C (gas 7) for about 10 minutes undercover*, then removed the roasting dish and left them for a further 15-20 minutes. 

This bakes as a loaf, but is easily broken into rolls destined for the freezer when they've cooled.

Leaving yeast and flour together to mature for this length of time greatly enhances the flavour - and this 'no-knead' method is one of the easiest I employ.

14 smaller rolls

Which rose really well

*The 'undercover' or 'cloche' method of proving and baking bread is explained in some detail here.

Fruit braid

Ingredients:

200g (or 1 mug) strong white flour

2 dessertspoons sugar

125ml (or 1/3rd mug) lukewarm water

1 teaspoon yeast (any sort)

2 tablepoons olive oil

For the filling:

1 large or two medium Bramley apples, diced

100g (1/2 mug) sultanas

2 dessertspoon sugar

2 teaspoons cinnamon

Mix the fruit, sugar and spice together

Glaze: Make a glaze with a teaspoon of sugar and a dessertspoon of hot water.

Method:

1. Measure the water and stir in the fresh yeast. Place the flour and sugar into a mixing bowl, pour in the yeast liquid, then add the olive oil. 
2. Have a little water to hand to add if necessary, remember, it is better for your dough to be wetter (slack) rather than drier (tight). Begin to mix by stirring the ingredients together with a knife, cutting through the dough as it forms. When it gets too stiff for the knife, use your hand to squeeze the mixture together. As it forms into a solid mass, keep turning it over and pressing it down to pick up the flour at the bottom of the bowl – but make sure it stays soft. Don’t be afraid to add more water to keep it soft! When all the flour has been mixed in, wipe the bowl around with the dough, turn it out onto the worktop and begin to knead. 
3. Knead by flattening the dough out, folding it over and flattening it again. If the dough is too sticky, instead of putting extra flour on your worktop, place some in the bowl, put the dough back in and turn it round to coat it all over. That way you keep the flour under control and you won’t be tempted to add too much. Knead until the dough becomes smooth – and then stop before you get fed up!
4. Shape the dough into a round and roll it out into a 25cm square, roughly. 
5. Spread the filling down the middle of the square– and cut each side cut into strips. Fold the top and bottom of the bread over the filling, then braid the strips over the top of the fruit. 
6. Leave to rise until the dough has grown puffy, then bake for 15 minutes at 220C (425F, gas mark 7). Check by lifting the edge of the braid with a palette knife - the bottom should be browning. Brush with the sugar glaze.
7. Either eat straight away with cream, custard or ice-cream, or wait until it is cold and slice and eat as a cake. 

Variation:

Make this as a sweet focaccia – roll the dough out into a circle about 20cm across and spread with the topping.


These breads in the picture were made by my special needs students - with a little help from me.


[Note: I hate blogging! In the draft this recipe has no spaces between the title and the text, and  each step is numbered - no idea where the flowers came from!:(]

Beginners, start here…

Breadmaking is seen as a scary thing for some people, but all my teaching is geared towards removing that fear and showing it to be the simple cooking tool that it is.

The fact is, that if you mix flour, lukewarm water and yeast together – you  *cannot* stop your bread from rising!

All my recipes follow the same path – and they all follow three simple breadmaking rules.

The three simple rules which you should bear in mind when making bread are:

1. Use strong, breadmaking flour – look for the words ‘strong’ or ‘bread’ on the packet. Plain flour will work in an emergency, and a mixture of strong and plain will work fine.

2. Use lukewarm (hand hot) water, and don’t put your dough anywhere too hot. Forget airing cupboards and radiators, the bread will rise on your worktop.

3. Give your bread time to rise after its final shaping and before it goes into the oven. White bread will double in size – a pizza base should look puffy compared to when you rolled it out.

And that’s it!

There’s also a couple of things to bear in mind, but aren’t rules as such:

1. Make sure your dough is soft and squishy – never be afraid to add more water whilst you’re mixing the dough.

2. If you have the slightest doubt whether your bread is done or not, put it back in the oven for a few more minutes. Look for colour on the bottom of your bread.

Yeast: Whatever yeast you’re using – fresh, active dried (comes in a tin) or easyblend (comes in sachets), treat them all the same.

Mix the yeast in the lukewarm water until dissolved, then add it straight into the flour.

As a general rule, use half as much dried yeast as fresh – so if the recipe says a dessertspoon of fresh yeast, use a teaspoon of dried.

But don’t worry too much about the amount of yeast you use: the more yeast you use, the faster your bread will rise; the less you use, the longer it will take.

A bread dough made with 400g (2 mugs) of flour will make a medium-sized loaf, about 8 bread rolls, two or three pizzas or 8 sizzlers (wraps, really) – or any other savoury bread you can think of!

I want to use this blog to demonstrate just how easy and accessible home breadmaking can be (is)!

Breadmaking is far easier than pastrymaking, and the dough is much more forgiving. What's more, virtually anything that can be made with pastry can be made with a bread dough – which can be completely fat free!

Apart from all this, there are several other reasons for making your own bread:

It's a lot cheaper - a 1.5kg bag of own-brand white flour, which will make three large loaves, currently costs around 70-80p. A 25cm (10") cheese and tomato pizza can be made for around 70p. And you can make a small batch of Chelsea buns for the price of one in a baker's shop.

It's healthier. You control the quality of the food you feed your family. Check out the number of ingredients on a wrapped sliced loaf.

It's more convenient than buying your bread - one of my students, who lives about 300 yards from a large supermarket told me she thought it was quicker to knock up a batch of rolls rather than nip to the supermarket.

At home you can make many different varieties of breads that you cannot even buy – or are very expensive to buy in the shops.

If you'd rather have organic bread it's much cheaper to make your own. If you want bread without salt, you have to make it yourself. The only way to make breads like pane casereccio (filled with Italian sausage and Gruyere), tarte Alsace* (a thin dough covered with creme fraiche, then thinly sliced onions then lardons of bacon – or slices of mushroom and tomato) is to make them yourself.

*Recipe to come

It's very enjoyable, dammit! It's fun to make your own bread - it's very satisfying to see a batch of terrific-smelling, great-looking bread come out of the oven. You get a sense of achievement you cannot get with any other branch of cooking (IMO!) (But beware – it can become very addictive.)

And if you're around kids, it's lovely to share the experience with them. Kids and breadmaking just go so well together.