Beautiful bread – and so easy to make. Simply mix the ingredients and let time do the work for you! If you have been put off making bread – then this is the recipe for you – even my pet magpie could do it!
This is a versatile recipe that you can use to make pizzas and flatbreads too.
RECIPE
- 4 cups of bread making flour – often referred to as 00 or ‘strong’.
- Tip of a teaspoon of dried yeast (you really don’t need much)
- Roughly 2 cups filtered water at room temperature
- 2 teaspoons salt flakes
- 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil – plus extra to drizzle on top
METHOD
- In a large mixing bowl, and with a chopstick, combine the flour, yeast and salt together.
- Add 11/2 cups of the water and mix together with same chopstick. You may need the extra water to get this into a very soft dough – this is important – it should not be stiff. Make sure you have thoroughly combined all the flour.
- Mix the olive oil in with the chopstick.
- Cover with cling film and allow to rise for 10-12 hours – overnight – in a draught free spot. It should double in size.
- Preheat oven to 220oC.
- Line a tray with baking paper and with a spatula, gently tip the dough out of the bowl and onto the tray.
- Leave to settle into shape for about 20 minutes.
- Sprinkle the top with olive oil and salt flakes – and whatever else you fancy in the way of dried herbs or seeds – I used black cumin.
- With an oiled finger, create dimples over the top.
- Bake for 25-30 minutes until golden.
TOP TIP: Gluten intolerance. Once upon a time all bread was made like this – left to prove overnight. Not so these days where chemicals are used to speed things up. The problem is, these traditional ways of making bread allowed the gluten to be ‘digested’ during the long proving process and generally non medical gluten intolerance was almost unheard of. Give it a try – see what you think?
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