Welcome to the next recipe in the 30 recipe challenge! If you want to read the rest of my endeavours check out my Woman Vs Food section found here.
I was very excited for this one. I absolutely adore homemade bread, and years of watching the Bake Off has given me enough knowledge of bread making to make a great loaf, right?
I decided that after the cake debacle in the aisles of Tesco that I would attempt something that didn't require a particular baking dish, and after a bit of Googling found a recipe that seemed perfect. Now I just needed the skill to go along with it...
Channelling my inner Paul Hollywood I prepared my ingredients and got to work. Now the first section went fine – I succeeded in putting the flour, butter, salt and yeast into a bowl. I even managed to do a bit of mixing! But this is where it all started to go wrong.
I don’t think I mixed it together well enough – or I didn’t add enough water or something, because as soon as I took it out to knead, it began tearing, and didn’t stop. Now I’m a forward thinking millennial – so I obviously hopped on the old google to have a look. The two most common answers I found were over-kneading – and I’d barely started – or not enough water. Now I’d stopped adding water because it had begun to feel sticky already but I dutifully added a few more splashes and lo and behold, the tearing reduced.
I popped my little ball of pretty in a bowl and covered with a tea towel to prove while I went off to do something far more boring. After creeping over and peeking through the side of the clear plastic bowl the allotted hour had passed and I could play with it some more.
I prepared my workspace and plopped out the now very big ball of dough to ‘knock-back’. After a bit more therapeutic kneading I put it on the specified baking tray and covered to let it raise. I then remembered this was for a blog post and grabbed it out again for a quick little photo:
One tedious hour later (that’s got to be the worst thing about making bread, the waiting around!) I made some slits in the top and dusted with flour before popping it in the oven. 20 mins later I ran back to take more photos of it in the oven – because by now this thing was like my child I was so proud of it!
Finally, the bread was ready. My kitchen smelled deliciously of baked bread and my stomach was rumbling. Here it is, the final product!
I had barely taken the photo before I was slathering the cut off in butter and devouring it. It wasn't quite Paul Hollywood perfect but I made it again a few days later for family and it was absolutely delicious. Now let me tell you – there is nothing as nice as homemade bread. I think I can count this one as a win again – this recipe thing is going well! (She says, jinxing herself).
Join me next week when I try to make soup… without a blender or anything. Oh dear…
Hwyl am nawr
J x
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