Not long ago, there was a wave of rumors on the Internet about additives found in store-bought bread. One can only guess how true the rumors were, but some particularly vigilant citizens became concerned about the problem of home baking. And it turned out that baking bread at home is not at all difficult, even if you don’t acquire special gadgets, but use the good old stove and oven.
How justified home baking is, it is better to ask people with experience. And they, as a rule, having learned to bake bread on their own, completely stop buying it in the store. Just the knowledge that there are no preservatives in homemade bread will encourage many to experiment with baking. Fortunately, you don’t need superfoods for this, and baking bread doesn’t take that much time.
Bread can be baked at home in several ways. The easiest way is to use a bread machine. Both a newfangled multicooker and a conventional oven are also suitable for baking bread. We probably won’t consider options with a Russian stove, since such luxury is rare today.
Homemade bread in a bread machine
In fact, those who have a bread machine at home participate minimally in the process of baking bread. Their task is to correctly measure the ingredients and load them into the machine. For example, excellent white bread will be made if you pour a glass of warm water into a ladle or bowl, stir in one and a half teaspoons of dry yeast and a couple of tablespoons of sugar. Add 3-4 tablespoons of vegetable oil there. All this should stand for ten minutes in a warm place. Then this impromptu dough is poured into the container of the bread machine, a teaspoon of salt and wheat flour, sifted through a sieve, are added there. The flour should be approximately 450 g. All that remains is to select the “White Bread” or “Basic” mode, the desired crust color and press the “Start” button. The bread will be ready in about two and a half hours.
For choux bread you will need 350 g of rye and 250 g of wheat flour, two tablespoons of honey and vegetable oil, one and a half teaspoons of salt, a teaspoon of caraway seeds, two teaspoons of dry yeast, 330 ml of water, as well as pre-brewed boiling water (80 ml) 4 tablespoons rye malt. We put everything listed in the bread machine, select the “Rye bread” mode and press the “Start” button.
To make the existence of bread machine owners easier, special ready-made baking mixes are produced. But if you still prefer to combine the ingredients yourself, you can experiment. For example, add melted butter rather than vegetable oil to make the taste of the bread more delicate. Or replace water with milk or kefir. You can add an egg, cottage cheese or muesli, dried fruits, bran, sprouted wheat grains, nuts, seeds, herbs and spices to the dough.
Homemade bread in the oven
Baking bread in the oven is not much more difficult than a regular pie. The main thing is to find a suitable baking container. And it is not at all necessary that it be a classic rectangular shape - both round and oval will do, as long as it has high sides and fairly thick walls.
For homemade white bread, take a quarter glass of milk, a glass of warm water, one and a half tablespoons of sugar, the same amount of melted butter, a teaspoon of salt, a packet of dry yeast and three and a half cups of flour. When the dough is ready, you will need a little vegetable oil to grease the pan.
First of all, yeast is diluted in warm water, then all of the above ingredients are added in the indicated quantities. But first add only two glasses of flour, and add as you mix. As soon as the dough begins to lag behind the walls, it needs to be kneaded - kneaded in every possible way with your hands, preferably on a table sprinkled with flour. This is quite hard physical work and will take about ten minutes.
Then take a large pan, put the dough in it and put it in a warm place, covering it with a lid or towel. The dough will approximately double in volume in an hour. The risen dough can be kneaded, or it can be rolled out into a thick layer and rolled up like a roll, and then placed in the prepared pan. The mold is also covered with a towel and again placed in a warm place for an hour, as the dough should rise again.
Before directly baking the bread in the oven, the temperature should already be approximately 200°C. The pan with the risen dough is placed in the oven for half an hour, but it is still worth checking periodically to make sure that the bread is not burnt. When the bread is baked, take it out and let it cool completely. It is not recommended to cut bread that has not cooled down.
Having mastered the preparation of bread in the oven according to the basic recipe, you can move on to experiments, adding spices, bran, dried fruits and whatever your heart desires to the dough.
Rye bread in the oven also turns out well, and the dough for it is prepared in almost the same way. For the dough you will need to take 8.5 g of dry yeast, dilute it with warm water, add salt and rye flour. There should be 300 ml of water per half kilo of flour. Knead all this into a dough and leave in a warm place for two hours. The risen dough is kneaded, formed into a loaf and again left alone for an hour. Then the pan with the future bread is placed in the oven and baked at 220°C for thirty minutes.
Homemade bread in a slow cooker
The multicooker, already appreciated by busy housewives and men who are far from cooking, can do almost everything. This includes baking bread. True, you will have to directly participate in this process. In addition to the fact that you will need to prepare the dough, the bread should be turned over during the baking process to get a loaf toasted on both sides - after all, there is no grill in the multicooker.
White bread will work great in a slow cooker if you take half a kilo of flour, 330 ml of water, 25 g of sugar, a teaspoon of salt, 6-7 g of dry yeast, and a couple of tablespoons of vegetable oil. Dissolve sugar and salt in warm, but not too hot water, add yeast to it - you get a dough. Keep the dough in a warm place so that the yeast foams and pour in the oil. Flour should be added, sifting through a sieve - this will make the bread more fluffy. The dough is kneaded for about 10 minutes, then placed in a large container in a warm place for three hours.
The risen dough is kneaded and placed in a multi-cooker bowl, previously greased with vegetable oil. It takes another hour for the dough to rise again. Some bakers turn on the “warm” mode at this stage, but you can do without it if the bowl with the dough is carefully covered and kept warm. As soon as the dough has risen again, you need to select the “baking” mode and set the timer for 50 minutes. The bread will be baked but will be white on top. Therefore, they carefully take it out, turn it over and put it back into the bowl. To brown the bread on the other side, 15-20 minutes in the “baking” mode is enough.
Almost the same way, black bread is baked in a slow cooker, only the flour, of course, is rye.
The lucky few succeed in making bread at home the first time. But this is not a reason to be sad at all. Try, experiment, and you will definitely be able to bake your own signature homemade bread - aromatic and tasty.
In the new Russia, interest in home baking appeared along with foreign bread machines. The loaves in them really turned out tasty, and when asked “is it worth buying,” the happy owners answered: “It’s worth it!” In the end, not many people purchased these ovens - they were expensive, but the stereotype that baking bread without a miracle machine is too troublesome remained.
Everything ingenious is simple!
In fact, there is nothing difficult in making homemade bread (it is much more difficult to make pies or dumplings). The classic recipe has only four simple ingredients - wheat flour, water, yeast and salt. And this is his strength! There is absolutely no point in chasing dietary flour and village sourdough.
“I would recommend taking regular premium wheat flour; this flour is the easiest to work with,” says Mikhail Bakunin, executive director of the Bread History company, coordinator of the ibake.ru project. “You can also bake with other types of flour, but this is a rather specific process and you can discourage any desire to work on bread."
The fact is that even if the bread is called rye or corn, it is prepared on the basis of wheat flour, and other types are added in small quantities for taste. And all attempts at home to bake rye bread only from rye flour are doomed to failure - the dough simply will not rise.
Experiments with sourdoughs, ancient yeast substitutes, can also end disastrously. They are made from flour and water by simple mixing, and everything would be fine, but the fermentation process takes 3-4 days and requires careful control.
“Sourdough needs to be literally fed, like a small child, adding flour, water, kneading it. It can be made with honey, using grapes, raisins, hops. This is incredibly interesting, but this is for those people who are interested in baking.” , warns Bakunin.
That’s why it’s better to start with regular yeast; it’s much more difficult to spoil it. The main thing is to follow the instructions and use warm water for dilution, not boiling water - this is the most common mistake!
A breath of air for the dough
The main fear associated with baking in general and bread in particular is caused by the need to knead the dough for a long time. Who wants to bend over a table and work intensely with their hands for two hours? But, fortunately, bread does not require such sacrifices - the ingredients only need to be mixed for 5-10 minutes.
“An option for the lazy is a food processor, which has a special hook that kneads the dough. But I advise those who use a mixer to still knead the dough with their hands for one or two minutes, because they have not yet invented a dough mixer that would completely replace hands baker,” says Mikhail.
It is difficult to “ruin” bread at the kneading stage, but it is possible by constantly adding flour to the dough so that it does not stick to the table. And it sticks not because of a lack of flour, but because of a lack of air. To saturate it with oxygen, the kneading process is needed.
After kneading, the dough is left to rise. In some recipes it is placed in a warm, wind-free place for an hour or two, in others it can be placed in the refrigerator overnight. For those who are baking for the first time, it is better to follow the first path.
Without unnecessary movements
After an hour's rest, the next stage is kneading and shaping. In total, it will take about 20 minutes. Provided, of course, that you want to bake a loaf “like in the store” - a beautiful elongated shape with notches. If a more “modest” loaf is suitable, you can do it in ten.
The purpose of kneading is to release excess carbon dioxide bubbles from the dough that were formed during the fermentation process. Here it is important to limit yourself to just a few “folding” movements (see video).
“If you knead the dough for a long time, it makes it denser, it removes the fluffiness, i.e. the less you touch it, the better,” says Mikhail Bakunin.
The kneaded dough, if you have the strength and desire, is divided into portions and shaped. Or they simply put it in a baking dish - this way it will definitely not spread or tear when trying to make a beautiful loaf.
Now the bread again needs heat (to restore the splendor of its shape and the airiness of the crumb, lost during molding), and it is left to rise for 40-60 minutes. Only this time, unlike the rising stage, you need to keep an eye on the dough (but without fanaticism).
“You don’t need to open it every five minutes and see how it’s there. You can guarantee that you won’t touch it for 20-30 minutes. And then you need to gently press the workpiece with your finger, and the finger mark should completely disappear. This shows that the bread is ready - it has risen and at the same time retained its elasticity,” says Bakunin.
Bread likes it hot
Before putting bread into the oven, you need to take care of its appearance (exterior, as bakers say) - make notches on the surface. A regular razor blade or sharp knife will do for this. On loaves it is customary to make 4-5 cuts diagonally, on loaves - one long one along the “bread ridge”.
“By making cuts on the bread, you determine where the bread will open, where the gas that is formed during the rising process in the oven will escape from the bread. Thus, you additionally control its shape so that it does not crack or rupture,” explains Mikhail .
Bread loves a hot oven, so it is better to turn it on in advance, while kneading, and heat it to a temperature of 250-260ºC. Before loading, you can sprinkle the chamber with water - this will make the bread crust more tender.
"How to check if the bread is ready? One way is to tap the bottom of the bread, it should make a hollow hollow sound," - advises Mikhail Bakunin, project coordinator ibake.ru.
It is almost impossible to resist the aroma of freshly baked bread. But bakers still recommend making an effort. Bread, like wine, needs to ripen, so let it at least cool before sampling. And it is better to store “precious”, hand-made loaves and loaves of bread in linen bags - they go stale in them more slowly.
Homemade bread is much tastier and healthier than store-bought bread. You can bake it yourself. Of course, this is not easy, because baking bread takes a lot of effort and time. However, you will be pleased with the result. To make the bun soft, fluffy, and aromatic, you need to make good bread dough. We invite you to try simple but very successful recipes.
To make the bread fluffy, you need to choose the right flour. Choose fresh, dry, homogeneous, without lumps or any inclusions. Before kneading, it should be dried a little. Why simply scatter flour on the table and leave for half an hour. And then it must be sifted to enrich it with oxygen. Then the bun will definitely turn out airy.
Here are the products you will need to bake yeast bread at home:
- 40 g yeast;
- teaspoon sugar;
- Art. spoon of salt;
- 1.5 kg flour;
- 3 glasses of water.
First you need to make a dough. Dissolve yeast and sugar in half a glass of heated water. Place where the dough will be warm. Fifteen minutes to half an hour will pass, and you will see how it is covered with bubbly foam.
Pour the flour into a container, stir in the salt. Make a small hole in the middle and pour warm water and dough into it. Knead the dough carefully, trying to rub out all the formed lumps. Leave the dough in a warm place for a couple of hours. It will begin to rise, increasing in size two or even three times.
The dough is ready for baking: it is soft and does not stick to your palms. Form a loaf and place in the oven.
The simplest recipe
This is a very simple bread recipe that a beginner baker can master. Here you do not need to prepare the dough, wait two hours for the dough to rise. In addition, you don’t have to adhere to a strict recipe, but use all products by eye.
You will need the following ingredients:
- glass of water;
- 3 cups flour;
- 8 tbsp. spoons of vegetable oil;
- Art. spoon of sugar;
- a teaspoon of salt and dry instant yeast.
Dissolve yeast in warm water, add oil, add salt and sugar. Next, slowly dusting the flour, knead the dough. It may not become smooth right away; a lot depends on the quality of the flour. As a last resort, let it sit for about ten minutes so that the main component of the future bread is fermented. And then knead a little more until the dough structure becomes elastic. Then place it in a warm place for thirty minutes or a little longer. During this period of time, the plastic mass will have time to double and become lush.
The main thing is that the bun is baked well in the oven. To do this, cut the dough into two pieces. Roll each into a rectangle, then roll into a log. Place both buns on a large baking sheet at once and leave to rise for forty minutes. You can turn on the oven and place a baking sheet on top of it. Or place it for proofing directly in the oven itself, setting the temperature to about 50 degrees.
When you see that the buns have become nice and fluffy, cut their top layer lightly with a knife and bake. The temperature can be more than 200 degrees, and the time can be about half an hour. If you can place a small metal container with water inside the oven, the crust of the bread will turn out tender.
Cooking in a bread machine
A bread maker is a very convenient home appliance; it saves great time, because all the processes of kneading the dough, proofing it and baking it are automatic. Here you can bake any bread using a variety of recipes.
Here is a universal recipe that is suitable for any bread machine:
- a teaspoon of dry yeast and salt;
- 400 g flour;
- glass of water.
The main secret is to correctly put all the ingredients into the bread machine. First add salt and flour. Next, press a small hole in the flour with your fingers and pour the yeast into it. Then pour in warm water, but so that it does not come into contact with the yeast.
Then close the lid and select the appropriate mode, which will allow you to knead the dough and bake. While the process of kneading and proofing the dough is in progress, you cannot open the lid of the bread machine, otherwise the dough will settle and the bread simply will not turn out.
Yeast-free dough for rye bread
Yeast-free rye bread improves intestinal motility, is a dietary product for people suffering from diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular diseases, and prevents cancer. You can prepare it at home using sourdough.
Rye sourdough is prepared over several days. To prepare it, you need to take equal parts of rye flour and warm water, mix until sour cream thickens and put in a warm place. The next day, after a day, add more flour and send it back to heat. After another day, the starter should rise into foam. This means that it is almost ready. Store the starter in the refrigerator at the very bottom at plus five degrees. When you take the starter out of the refrigerator, you need to keep it at room temperature for about an hour so that it “comes to life” and begins to interact.
We bake yeast-free rye bread from the following products:
- 300 g flour;
- 2.5 glasses of water;
- a little more than half a tbsp. spoons of salt;
- any seeds, crushed nuts, bran, caraway seeds - optional for taste;
- 2 tbsp. spoons of sourdough.
Pour the indicated amount of water at room temperature into the container, dissolve the starter in it, and add the seeds. Gradually add flour and knead the dough. It takes time for it to ferment, so leave it under a towel for 20 minutes.
Now you need to knead the dough well on a wooden surface so that it becomes smooth, even, and stops sticking. Then keep it in a warm place for 10 hours.
The dough has risen and can be laid out in greased molds. Bake for about an hour. Temperature regime – 180 degrees.
The hot baked loaf should be wrapped in a damp towel to make the crust soft.
Kefir based
Kefir bread dough is usually prepared without yeast or sourdough, using regular soda. This is a very easy recipe that will appeal to those who do not like to spend a long time fiddling around the stove.
For homemade bread you will need:
- a glass of kefir (the more sour, the better);
- a glass of flour with a slide;
- Art. spoon of sugar;
- teaspoon salt;
- half a teaspoon of soda.
Kefir must be brought to room temperature. Pour into a container, stir in sugar, salt and soda. Let sit for about 15 minutes until small bubbles form in the liquid.
Now you can add flour. It is necessary to do this gradually, in small portions, kneading with a wooden spatula. If the dough has already formed, it is inconvenient to knead it further with any tools. Transfer the entire mixture onto a wooden surface. Lightly dusting with flour, continue kneading with your hands until the dough is pleasantly smooth.
Much depends here on the quality of flour you get. Therefore, you may need a little more or, conversely, less. The main thing is that the dough is not too dense, otherwise it will not rise well.
Leave the bread dough alone for forty minutes, covering it with a towel. Then form two loaves, place on a baking sheet and bake for about 40 minutes. Set the temperature to 180 degrees.
Check readiness with a wooden toothpick by piercing the crust. If there are no crumbs on it, the bread is ready.
How to make sourdough
Healthy and healthy bread can be made using homemade sourdough. It can be stored for a long time without molding, and almost never becomes stale even after a week. The sourdough is prepared in the same way as in the recipe for yeast-free rye bread. You can use whole grain flour. If you don’t find one, then take first-grade flour, but then add very little bran to it.
We prepare yeast-free dough for sourdough bread from the following products:
- 2-3 large tbsp. spoons of sourdough;
- glass of water;
- 400 g flour,
- teaspoon salt;
- Art. spoon of vegetable oil.
To make the dough, dissolve the starter in warm water, add flour, and knead. Place in a warm place for an hour to start the fermentation process. Then pour in the oil, add salt, and knead well. The layer will be smooth, but sticky - that’s how it should be. Place a cotton cloth in a colander, sprinkle with flour, and place the dough there. Cover with a cloth. Leave for 3 hours to allow fermentation to continue.
Now the dough is almost ready. You can already form a bun from it, decorate it with nuts, seeds, sesame seeds or caraway seeds. Make a cut on the surface of the bread and place in the oven. Bake for about half an hour in a hot oven. The temperature can be set to more than 200 degrees.
Here's what you'll need for sour milk bread:
- a glass of sour milk;
- half a kilo of flour;
- a teaspoon of dry yeast or 50 g of wet yeast;
- 2 tbsp. spoons of sugar;
- 50 g butter;
- egg;
- half a teaspoon of salt.
Pour sugar and yeast into water, add three tablespoons of flour, stir and let stand for 10 minutes. The mixture will rise into foam, which means it’s time to pour in the sour milk. After – melted butter, egg, salt.
Flour should be added in small portions. Knead so that no lumps form and the dough is smooth. It may turn out to be slightly runny, then you can season it with a little flour.
Then leave the elastic ball in a warm place for half an hour; it will almost double in size. Punch down the dough, shape it into a loaf and let rest for about 20 minutes. It should be baked by setting the temperature to 160 degrees, time – 40 minutes. To prevent the crust from being too hard, you can lightly grease it with butter - butter or vegetable.
Bread is a source of carbohydrates, therefore it increases brain activity and gives strength for the whole day. In Rus', women have always baked homemade village bread . Bread contains fiber that is beneficial for the body, and also helps us cope with fatigue and resist allergic reactions. Bread made at home is especially valuable because it contains only natural ingredients. .
5 interesting facts about homemade bread
- Homemade bread is a dietary product as it is low in calories.
- Dark homemade bread is healthier than white bread.
- The healthiest one is rye black bread.
- Homemade bread cleanses the intestines of harmful substances.
- Homemade bread contains a rich vitamin and mineral complex.
The main question that a housewife faces when preparing homemade bread is: how to choose the right flour.
High-grade flour contains starch and gluten, since it is produced only from grain kernels. During the flour production process, the grain shell is sifted out, and thus the flour is deprived of valuable vitamins and healthy unsaturated fatty acids. The bread, made from premium flour, is light and has a beautiful golden brown crust. We pay for this by the fact that such bread is high in calories and can be harmful to digestion and the body as a whole.
There is another torment that we have already forgotten about in the era of progress. It is called coarse flour, wheat or rye. It is obtained by grinding the entire grain, including the shell.
This flour retains all the beneficial qualities of the grain. Our grandmothers used it to make homemade bread in the oven. Nowadays, bread made from such flour in production is called whole grain. It costs about 100 rubles in stores and, in addition to flour, contains other components unsafe for human health, such as yeast and flavoring additives, and a large amount of sugar. You can buy wholemeal flour in health food stores or replace it with bran and flax, which are available in pharmacies. From such healthy flour, you can make delicious homemade bread, which is not inferior in quality to store-bought bread, and in terms of benefits is even superior to it. Here are some simple recipes for homemade bread.
Rye bread recipe
Required ingredients:
- wholemeal rye flour - 2 cups (you can use a mixture of flour and rye bran, which are sold at the pharmacy)
- water - 1 glass
- salt - 1 teaspoon
- coriander, pepper or cumin to taste
- nuts to taste
Cooking method:
- Pour rye flour into a glass container, add warm water, salt, slaked soda, spices and ground nuts.
- Mix the bread mixture well.
- With wet hands, place the finished dough into a baking pan.
- If desired, you can sprinkle ground oat flakes or sesame seeds on top.
- Bake in an oven preheated to 180-200 degrees for 40 minutes.
Homemade bread for diabetics
An easy homemade bread recipe that is gluten-free, fat-free, and complex carb-free. It can be eaten by people on a diet and people with diabetes.
Ingredients for healthy homemade bread:
- flaxseed flour 1 cup (sold in the store, you can grind flax seeds from the pharmacy in a blender)
- cashews and almonds a quarter cup (you can use ground peanuts or seeds)
- cinnamon 1 teaspoon
- prunes 1 handful
- ground walnuts 0.5 cups
- warm water 1 glass
- ground dried apples 4 tablespoon
- baking soda (slaked with vinegar) or baking powder
- salt 0.5 teaspoon
Cooking method:
- First we need to prepare the flour from which we will bake bread.
- To do this, grind flax flour or flax seeds, nuts, seeds in a blender until it becomes flour.
- Add warm water and ground dried apples to the resulting flour, stir thoroughly, add cinnamon, salt and slaked soda.
- Preheat the oven to 180 degrees and place the resulting mixture in a mold or on baking paper.
- Bake for about 35-40 minutes.
- Cool the finished bread and cut into pieces.
Yeast-free rolled oats bread
How is homemade bread different from store-bought bread?
Very often, store-bought bread contains yeast, which is made from harmful chemical components, for example, sulfuric acid, bleach, sodium hydroxide, orthophosphoric acid. These and many other chemicals according to state standards GOST 171-81 used for the production of yeast.
We offer a recipe for safe yeast-free oatmeal bread, which does not require large expenditures and contains the simplest ingredients.
Ingredients for yeast-free bread:
- milk or kefir - 1 glass
- vegetable oil 2 tablespoons (preferably unrefined)
- whole grain flour (wheat or rye) -2 cups
- honey - 2 tablespoons
- rolled oats or oatmeal - 1 cup
- baking soda (slaked with vinegar) or baking powder
- salt - 1 teaspoon
- coriander, pepper or cumin
Cooking method:
The finished bread can be cut and stored in the freezer. Homemade bread is especially useful because it does not grow moldy, but becomes stale. You can make it from stale bread.
Angela at mealtime!
Day after day we work to earn our bread and butter. We greet guests at the door with bread and salt. We ask for “bread and circuses.” We break bread and share with our neighbors. We see you off on your way with bread and remember the departed. Bread is everything to us.
It is believed that the first bread appeared in the Neolithic era. Our ancestors mixed flattened, partially crushed grains with water and baked them on hot cobblestones. But how did humanity get from these prehistoric flatbreads to the bread as we know it now?
The art of baking was widely developed in Ancient Egypt. The fact is that it was the Egyptians who discovered the secret of sourdough bread. According to legend, one of the slaves was entrusted with baking traditional flour tortillas. The baker kneaded the dough (and it was in the monstrous sun), but was forced to leave. When the would-be cook returned, he discovered that the dough had turned sour. Trying to hide his mistake, the poor fellow crushed the dough and hastily put it in the oven. The result was the fluffiest bread ever baked. The idea was quickly picked up by the ancient Greeks, and the fame of the newfangled fluffy bun spread throughout the ancient world. The Roman Empire even had large public ovens for mass production of beloved baked goods.
Unfortunately, mechanized factories and bread factories that mushroomed around the world at the end of the 19th century virtually brought home baking to a standstill.
The invention of the bread machine twenty-seven years ago finally destroyed the old tradition. But admit it, how much you want real bread, cooked with love, with soul!
Bread So that when you break a loaf, the table is strewn with crispy crumbs, and the smell brings pleasant thoughts about a country oven and a glass of fresh milk... And only a catastrophic lack of time stands in our way.
But what if there was a recipe that required little effort but guaranteed delicious homemade bread? It exists and is as simple as all ingenious things! Let's get started?!
Necessary:
3 cups wheat flour (375-405 g)
1.5 cups water (375 ml)
1/2 tsp. dry instant yeast
1 tbsp. sea salt
How to cook:
1. In a large bowl, mix flour, yeast and salt. Mix the mixture thoroughly for a minute using a whisk, saturating the flour with oxygen.
Mix dry ingredients with a whisk
2. Add warm water (about 40°C).
Pour in water and stir well. You can use a spatula or spoon, but as they say, dough loves your hands. Don't be afraid to get dirty, the yeast needs our warmth and care. This has a beneficial effect on both the fermentation process and the taste of the bread.
3. Cover the bowl with cling film and place in a warm place for 12-18 hours.
Cling film Avoid drafts under any circumstances! Don't worry if the dough only took 11 hours to rise. Or even 24 hours.
11 o'clock The bread will be equally delicious in any case.
4. Preheat the oven to 240°C.
5. Place the dough on a heavily floured towel.
Place the dough on a towel. Use the edges of the towel to form a round loaf.
Cover the dough with a towel. You can also do this with your hands, helping to collect the sticky dough with a spatula or knife.
6. Cover the dough with a towel and leave for 30 minutes.
7. Heat the loaf pan in the oven for 10 minutes. We used glass heat-resistant 3 liter mold with lid. If you don't have such a mold, you can use a cauldron, an enameled cast-iron pan with a lid, or any heat-resistant bowl. The utensils used must be thick-walled!
8. Remove the hot pan from the oven. Carefully place the dough into it, turning the towel over.
Place the dough in a pan. You can make cuts on the surface of the bread with a sharp knife for a more aesthetic appearance.
9. Close the mold with a lid. If your pan does not have a lid, you can use foil to tightly “seal” the pan. In this way we “block” the vapors inside the pan, which will ensure even distribution of heat over the entire surface of the bread, and will also allow the formation of a pleasant crispy crust.
10. Bake for 30 minutes covered and another 15 minutes uncovered until deep golden brown. When tapped, the finished loaf should make a hollow sound.
11. Cool completely on a wire rack before slicing. Do not under any circumstances crush or break hot or warm bread, it may settle!
