Recipe

Simple Basic Bread Recipe – Yield one large loaf or rolls

500g strong bread flour

10g salt

20g sugar

30ml olive oil or melted butter

25g fresh yeast

320ml warm water

Directions on how to make

1. Place into a large mixing bowl the flour, salt, sugar and oil.

2. Dissolve the yeast into the warm water and add to the mixing bowl to form a soft, sticky, rough dough.

3. Lightly flour the worktop and knead well for 10 minutes until you have smooth, silky and elastic consistency.

4. Return the dough back to the mixing bowl covering with a tea towel, placing somewhere warm.

5. Once risen well, deflate and pat out before shaping up into tin bread, bloomer, cob or rolls placing into a prepared baking tin or trays allowing room to prove.

6. Prove to double in size at room temperature, before baking in a very hot preheated oven 220c / Gas Mark 7 for 30 -35 minutes for tin bread, bloomers and cobs and 20-25 minutes for rolls.

7. Once baked, transfer from the oven onto a cooling wire before eating warm.

Baker Mike's Bready Top Tips

* Ensure you use fresh flour and once opened store in an airtight container for no longer than 3 months.

* Water temperature must be around blood temperature (37C) in the winter and tepid to cool in summer.

* Once you have mastered the basic dough try adding other ingredients like cheese, onions, seeds and herbs.

* Preheating the oven is essential to kill the yeast and set the structure giving a softer inner core.

* Always bake bread and rolls around the middle of the oven, giving it a conker dark brown colour on top.

* Glaze your bread with butter once baked for a professional finish.

* This recipe makes perfect pizza bases for a simple tea.

* Dried yeast is half the amounts of fresh yeast.