I've been watching the Great British Bake off, absolutely loving it, but it does leave me with a bit of Baking Envy. Having been quite busy recently it's been difficult to find some time to properly bake, however, today was the day!
The Project: White Bread
Recipe from: Paul Hollywood
Ingredients:
500g Strong White Bread Flour
40g Soft Butter
2 Sachets of Fast-Action Dried Yeast
2 Tsp Salt
300ml Luke Warm Water
Olive Oil for Kneading
Unlike some of the other bread recipes I've come across, this one seemed like a good one to start with, I haven't made bread properly in a long time (I've dabbled in bread rolls, naan breads and pizzas, but not actual bread) so I wanted to go back to basics (at least for the first one).
I currently do not own a sieve (weird I know, and I promise to buy myself one every time I discover I need one for something, it just is not something that I remember to put on the weekly shopping list). The flour just got weighed out and put into the bowl (whilst I hoped that my lack of sieve did not cause problems at the very first stage), followed by the butter, salt and yeast as Paul instructed. Then for the fun messy part - adding the water bit by bit and mixing by hand. Once I had everything combined, it was time to spend 5 minutes kneading the dough. My memories of making bread previously involve using flour as part of the kneading process, however Paul suggested using the Olive Oil, which I thought was a bit odd. Paul's a famous BBC One Chef, of course I took his advice. I actually prefer using Olive Oil now, it's less messy and it does not dry out the dough, thanks for the tip Paul!
After 5 minutes of kneading, it was left to prove for an hour to double in size, this is where I discovered that I need to purchase not only a sieve but some bigger mixing bowls too.
After it's size increased, it was kneaded again for a couple of minutes,shaped into a dome and proved again for an hour on the baking tray. Once sufficiently big, it was cut lightly on top and dusted with flour.
Then it was place in the oven at 220°C for 30 minutes. I also took Paul's advice of putting a baking tray in the bottom of the oven and adding cold water to it just as you close the door and it worked, I had a nice crust on the bread, although it did brown and harden a little quicker than I had expected, I will have to experiment later to find out whether that was the water or my oven.
There was a nice spring in the bread and it tasted wonderful. I usually get discouraged by the amount of time required to knead dough when making bread, but I think 5 minutes for this recipe was a nice way to ease myself into it. Perhaps I'll try something a little more adventurous with it next time. I have added Paul's Bread Recipe Book to my Amazon wish list, so there may be more from Paul's repertoire, I personally would love to taste the chocolate and raspberry bread! Overall - I enjoyed baking the bread and I enjoyed eating the bread - therefore baking bread is good!
Useful Tips Gained: Knead using Olive Oil instead of Flour
Kitchen Items to Purchase: Sieve, Bigger Mixing Bowls
Items added to Amazon Wish List: Paul Hollywood's Bread Recipe Book
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