This is my go-to bread recipe that creates a wonderful light everyday bread with a beautiful crisp crust, very akin to sourdough but with far less jeopardy.
Once you get the hang of the recipe you and mix and match the types of flour you use and make it your own. This recipe is for a Country loaf, which is a combination of white flour and rye flour, but using all white flour will work just as well.
3g yeast
360 water
20g honey (optional)
400g strong white bread flour
100g Rye flour
8g salt
- Add yeast into a large bowl and add 360g tap water (doesn’t need to be warm) stir to combine and break up any lumps
- Add honey, flours and finally, salt. Give it all a good mix until all the flour has been combined(I tend to use a silicon spatula as they are easy to clean but it’s fine to use your hands if you prefer.
- Leave to sit for 30 mins
- After 30mins the flour will have absorbed some of the water. This is a no-knead recipe so you all your messy work will be done in the bowl and not on your worktop.
- To build strength in the dough we are going to fold it. This basically means taking the corners, gently pulling upwards and over the dough over, turn the bowl and do the same again for a few rotations. Enjoy the process, you don’t need to be too exact, you are just gently building strength.
- Leave the dough for 30 mins and then repeat the folding.
- Leave for another 30 mins and then repeat the folding one last time.
- Cover the bowl (cling film, or a plastic shower cap) and put it in the fridge overnight. The dough will need at least 12 hours in the fridge, but if you leave it until the following evening it will be fine, really, this is a very forgiving recipe.
The following day:
- Remove your dough from the fridge and dust your worktop lightly with flour. Empty the dough onto the worktop and gently pull the sides out to form a rough square, fold the four corners over to the middle of the bread and then flip it over.
- Now do your best to form a ball with your hands, tucking the dough under itself as you go. Be gentle here as you want the gas bubbles in the dough to help it rise in the oven.
- Dust the ball of dough with flour and cover with a clean t towel.
- Proving time will depend on the temperature of your kitchen and may take anywhere between 1 or two hours, but you are looking for the dough to have risen roughly doubled in size.
I cook the bread in a dutch oven (a large cast iron pot with a lid big enough to easily fit my dough).
- Preheat your oven to 230oc with your cast iron pot inside.
- Once your oven is heated you are ready to cook your bread.
- Gently place your dough on a piece of baking paper, leaving enough spare at the side for you to lift the dough in and out of the cast iron pan.
- Score a 1nch deep cross on top of your bread (this will prevent it bursting out at the sides during baking).
- Now gently lower your dough on it’s paper into the pan, put the lid on and cook in the oven for 25mins
- After 25mins remove the lid, reduce oven temp to 200oc and cook for a further 30mins until golden in colour. The bread should sound hollow when tapped unneath.
- Leave on a cooling rack until completly cool (if you can wait that long!).
To store, cover with a clean t towel or wrap in a brown paper bag. Your bread should last about 3 days (4/5 if toasting).
If it really all goes horribly wrong remember you can always use overproved dough to make focaccia!