Simple Things: Baking Bread

What is wrong with this image? Don't get technical on me, I'm talking about the knife-wielding toddler. I can assure you the phone (camera) was hastily put down to correct the situation.

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I'm still very new at baking bread at home. It's one of those 'simple' things that is so easy to do but I had a real block with bringing it through. I've been doing a lot of simple, homemade stuff for a few years now but this one, I never quite got to, until recently. Partly because I wasn't really eating much bread (living mostly gluten free) and having slipped back into eating a smaller amount of bread, I suppose I found the idea of baking it myself overwhelming. 

Anyway we have been enjoying going to a playgroup where bread making is the first activity of the day (such a beautiful way for the little ones to settle in) and I started to see that this was really something I could bring in to our days easily enough. It's not an everyday activity, and with not many mouths to feed, one morning of bread-making lasts us a few days. And then I feel like I need a few days to recover from the bread overload before I even think about doing it again. But we love it. And I love watching my little one playing in the garden, baking his bread, popping it in a sunny spot to rise. This is how they learn, isn't it?

The recipe I've been using the last few months is a simple one that was shared by our wonderful playgroup coordinator, so I'll share it here with you. I can assure you there is nothing complicated about this recipe and so many ways to vary it, change it up and add interesting extras for flavour and texture. I'm also eyeing off the amazing looking recipe in the My Darling Lemon Thyme cookbook, a gluten free sourdough. When I can master that, I think I might be in bread heaven. But first, the basics.

Bread

Ingredients

5 cups flour (whole wheat, spelt, white can be used or even a mix of flours, e.g. 3 cups whole wheat, 2 cups white)

1.5 tsp granulated yeast

2 tsp extra virgin olive oil

2 cups warm water

1 tsp sugar (optional)

1 tsp salt (optional)

Method

Dissolve sugar (if using) into warm water and stir in yeast. Let sit for 10 minutes or until frothy bubbles appear giving off a fermenting 'beer' smell.

Sift flour/s and salt (if using), mixing together. Make a well in the middle.

Add oil to the yeast liquid and pour into well in flour, stir.

Knead well (approx. 5 minutes).

Place bread dough in a bowl covered by a warm, damp tea towel and leave to rise in a warm spot (at least 1 hour).

After the dough has doubled in size, give it a second kneading (approx. 5 minutes) and transfer to a greased bread tin or shape into rolls. 

Let it rise a second time in a warm place (a sunny spot or a pre-warmed oven with heat turned off) until doubled in size again.

Bake in preheated oven at 180 degrees for about 40 minutes.

It's pretty simple. It's a really primal thing, for me, making bread at home. The slow, mindful kneading of the dough (with a sweet little song to hold the space for little one, and big one), the smell of freshly baked bread that fills the house, the simple pleasure of eating bread baked fresh with your own hands. It makes a house a home; it makes the everyday come to life. I am most definitely keeping this practice going. And on bread day, we eat a simple soup for dinner, just so we can eat a little more bread.

Do you make your own bread?