Recipe: Simply Wonderful Bread

I recently bought a book called Brilliant Bread, by James Morton, a finalist in the 2012 series of The Great British Bake Off.  Packed full of great baking advice and written accessibly in plain and simple language, I tried his recipe for Basic White Bread (page 27) a couple of times over the Christmas break.  The second attempt (photos below) was far superior to the first, partly because we felt, as consumers, that there was a little too much salt in the first one (10g, as per original recipe).  As a result, I cut the salt measurement in half to 5g, and, as a family, we agreed it tasted better.  The rise and shaping on the second loaf was much better too, as the first loaf was a little flat, and probably over-proved!  (Oh, the delights of first attempts!)

Ingredients:

500g strong white flour
5g salt
1 x 7g sachet instant yeast
350g tepid water

Method:

Place flour in a large bowl, with salt rubbed in on one side and yeast rubbed in on the other side, ensuring they don’t touch before you add the water, as salt can destroy the yeast.

Add tepid water gradually, using your hand to mix it into the flour until you have a nice dough.  Cover with cling film for 45 minutes or until roughly doubled in size.

Wet your hand, slide fingers between the bowl and dough, fold the dough in half, and then turn the bowl a quarter turn, working right around the bowl to knock air out of the dough.  When dough is smooth, recover and leave for an hour.

Turn the dough onto a floured worktop, stretch the dough out and fold back over.  Turn the dough slightly and repeat until dough tightens.  Shape dough into a ball by sliding hands under and turning the dough.  Place dough ball on a floured baking tray (I covered mine with the bowl this time) for 40 mins.  Then turn the oven on (210̊ C or gas 6.5) to heat up for 20 mins.  Then score the bread with a serrated knife and bake on a low shelf for 40 mins until golden brown.

Result:

Here’s how the bread turned out, and we all agreed it was the best loaf of bread we’ve had for a long time (and that includes over ten years of home baked bread-machine bread!).

As you can see, this rustic-looking loaf has a great shape, a crunchy crust, a good rise...

...and a great crumb!

My family gave this delicious, yet simple loaf of bread a resounding ten out of ten, which makes it a definite Hall of Fame candidate.  I’ll be baking this one again and again...and it’s great with home-made tomato soup too!!!  Why not have a go at making this loaf and let us know how you get on?

Original recipe and instructions from Brilliant Bread (James Morton 2013 Ebury Press).  ISBN: 9780091955601