Our Favourite Bread Recipe

Yowsers we’ve had a lot of bread fails over the years! We used to have an oven which gently steamed yet also cremated the bread so I’m blaming that for our turbulent journey with bread making. More recently we got brave enough to make bread in our Dutch oven which has been a game changer (that and a new oven!)

Here’s our favourite bread recipe, a fail safe, go to recipe for a basic white loaf using yeast. I’m not that sophisticated yet to perfect a sourdough concoction!

Ingredients to make 2 loaves (one for you, one to give to a friend or neighbour):

• 1kg strong white flour

• 30g sugar

• 20g salt

• 15g yeast

• 600ml warm water

1. In a jug dissolve the yeast and sugar in the warm water. Make sure the water is warm, if it’s too hot it’ll kill the yeast. Leave it for 10 minutes until the yeast is slightly frothy at the top of the water.

2. Mix the salt into the flour and then add the yeasty water and mix together with your hands until it comes together in a blob.

3. Tip the dough blob onto your counter and begin kneading. There are a tonne of theories about how much to knead the bread so somewhere between 100 presses (Doves Farm) to 10 minutes. Sing songs, dance with your feet, rap, tell a story, recite poetry, count to the biggest number you can, take it in turns… play as you knead, you have a little time whilst you work with your hands so make it fun. If you’re on your own whilst you’re making this, use it as a kind of active meditation. Busy hands, open heart, free headspace.

4. Once you’re finished kneading, place your kneaded dough into a bowl to rise. Between an hour to an hour and a half, or until the dough has doubled. We often put a big wood slice over the bowl if we’re in the woodland but a plate/tea towel will do the trick.

5. Once your dough has done its thing, press the air from the dough, cut it in half and shape it into the tin you’ll be baking them in.
   NOTE: If you’re making these into rolls, be sure to leave enough room between them so they’re able to rise once more before baking.

6. Let them rise once again, for about half an hour.

7. Place in an oven at 200oc for 20-40 minutes depending on the size of your bread. For rolls it’ll be much quicker, for a full loaf it’ll be a bit longer. Test to see if they’re done by tapping on the underside, if it sounds hollow you’re good to go.

8. This is the hardest step, wait! Once they’re out of the oven, wait for at least 20 minutes before tucking in. It’ll be worth the wait. Fresh out of the oven there’ll be a lot of moisture so you’ll end up with a doughy bread, if you wait 20 minutes you’ll get a better bread experience… I promise!

9. Tuck in!!

If you’re cooking in a Dutch Oven:

Prepare your coals at least 30 minutes before you’re ready to start cooking. At step 7, place your bread dough into your Dutch Oven, remove most of the heat from underneath and place a handful of hot coals onto the lid. It’ll need a similar amount of time but keep monitoring the heat. The wind has a tricksy way of whipping the heat from the fire. You’ll need to use a little trial or error for this to get the heat consistent, but that’s half the fun of cooking outside?!