A nice easy Focaccia recipe.

White bread flour     500g
Fast action yeast       1 level teaspoon
Fine salt                     1 level teaspoon
Lukewarm water       325g
Sea salt crystals         1 level teaspoon
Olive oil
Rosemary

Mix the flour, yeast and fine salt in a large bowl. Add the water and mix until all the ingredients are combined.

To knead, scrape the dough out onto a clean work surface and gently stretch and fold for about 5 minutes.

Once the dough becomes smooth, shiny and holds its shape, return it to the bowl, cover with cling-film and let it rest for about 90 minutes.

Scrape the dough out of the bowl onto a well floured baking tray. Stretch, prod and flap the dough so it evenly covers the tray. Cover the dough with an oiled piece of cling-film for 60-90 minutes.

To bake, prod the dough with floury fingers to create dents all over the surface. Drizzle olive oil generously over the dough. Sprinkle the sea salt crystals and rosemary, then bake at 200°C for about 25 minutes.

(The picture features a focaccia made by a participant – also called Steve – on one of our courses)

This is a lovely light moist wholemeal sourdough loaf. It really brings out the nutty flavour of the spelt and there are a few techniques in here to get the bread moist and really light and open.

Sourdough starter (made up 24 hours before)      200g
Wholemeal spelt flour                                                      500g
Boiling water                                                                        300g
Cold water                                                                             100g
Fine salt                                                                                  1tsp

1. Pour the boiling water on to the spelt flour.  Stir together and leave to cool for 10mins.

2. Add the cold water and starter and mix well.  The dough will form a wet paste.  Cover and leave for 20mins.

3. Sprinkle the salt over the dough and knead. The dough will be tricky as it is very wet and has relatively low gluten.  Add more cold water if the dough feels at all dry.

4. Put the dough in a bowl and cover with cling-film for three hours.

5. Shape the dough. Use plenty of flour as the dough will be sticky.

6. Cover the dough and leave at room temperature for about another four hours. The dough should be light and puffy when poked with a finger.

7. Bake for 50 minutes. 250°C for the first 10 minutes and then turn the oven down to 180°C. Spray the inside of the oven with water to create steam when the loaf first goes in the oven.

8. Leave the dough to cool for 2-3 hours before eating!

This weekend I’ve had several people ask for advice about kneading dough with conditions such as arthritis or RSI in hands and wrists.

We have had people take part in bread courses with this condition. Here are some ideas to help.

• Remember to knead gently. For small amounts of dough (1-3 loaves worth) knead with soft hands, take breaks and go easy on the dough.
• Use a machine for the initial mixing. It can be hard work combining liquids and flour and a machine can do this job well for you.
• Use a wetter dough. Try increasing the amount of water in your recipe so that there is 65-70g of water for every 100g of flour. A wetter dough is softer and easier to mix.
• Mix and knead dough in the afternoon. And if that means you will be baking too late, experiment with leaving the dough in the fridge overnight and baking the next morning.
• Use warm ingredients – heating the liquids in a bread recipe to blood temperature makes the dough much more comfortable to handle
• Stretch and fold the dough. Stretching and folding the dough during the first rise helps the gluten develop with less kneading. Two or three times during the first rise, you can turn the dough out onto a work-surface and fold it in three, return to the mixing bowl.
• Use long rising dough such as sourdough which requires less kneading.
• Use your fists rather than your fingers to knead the dough
• Make smaller batches or knead the dough in smaller batches

We’d really like to here about your experiences of making bread if you have one of these conditions or something similar.  Use the links on the right to email us or join the Facebook discussion group.

Following last year’s extensive research into the best hot cross bun recipe, here is the definitive Eastcourt Manor version.

Ingredients

Bread flour             600g
Butter                       90g
Sugar                         100g
Salt                             ¾ tsp
Allspice                    ¾ tsp
Fast-action yeast  1 tsp
Milk                            300g
Eggs                           1
Currants                   180g
Candied peel            60g

Crossing paste

Bread flour               6 tbsp
Water                          6 tbsp

Simple syrup

Sugar                           6 tbsp
Boiling water            6 tbsp

Method

Mix and knead

Rub the butter into the flour so the butter breaks up into small pieces. Add the sugar, salt, allspice and fast-action yeast. Weigh the milk in a jug and beat in the egg. Add the milk and eggs to the flour mixture and combine until it forms a soft smooth dough.

Knead the dough on your worktop by gently stretching and folding the dough until it becomes smooth, shiny and holds its shape well – about 5 minutes.

Cover the dough with clingfilm for 10 minutes.

Stretch the dough out, add the currants and candied peel and continue kneading until all the fruit is incorporated.

Return to the bowl, cover with clingfilm and leave to rest at room temperature.

After 30 minutes, turn the dough out onto the worksurface, gently stretch it out and fold in three. Return to the bowl and cover.

Shaping

After another 30 minutes, turn the dough onto the worksurface. Divide evenly into 16-18 pieces of dough (75-80g each for 18 buns; 85-90g each for 16 buns).

Shape the buns by forming your hand into a claw with your fingers touching the worktop. Rest your palm gently on top of the dough and move your hand round and round in a circle. The dough should form up into a nice bun shaped ball.

Put the buns into a baking tray or in a very large cake tin to prove, covered with clingfilm, for about an hour and a half. The buns should have nearly doubled in size and be soft and puffy to the touch.

Preheat the oven to 220°C.

Make the crossing paste by mixing the flour and water and use an icing bag (or a plastic bag with the corner cut off) to pipe the crosses on top of the buns.

Bake the buns for 25 minutes. Add steam at the start of the bake by spraying the sides of the oven with water or pouring boiling water into a preheated metal tray in the bottom of the oven. Keep a careful eye on the buns – if they bake too long the crossing paste will lose its contrasting colour.

When the buns are cool, make a simple syrup by dissolving the sugar into boiling water. Brush the hot syrup on top of the buns.

 

We’ve just completed an advanced bread course and here is some of the lovely bread the participants made yesterday – brioche and ciabatta.

We’ve just been finalising the details for our advanced bread courses which start next weekend. We’ve been finalising the instructions to handle this very wet dough ciabatta dough (75% hydration) and stocking up on butter and eggs for the brioche (5 eggs and a pack of butter in each loaf!) There’s still a couple of spaces for next weekend or you can book now for our next advanced course in June.

Step-by-step photo guide to shaping tin and round loaves

Shaping for a tin

Scrape the dough out of your bowl onto the work surface and gently pat it out into a rectangle about 2-3 times the size of the tin.

Fold the short sides into the centre, sealing them with fingertips.

Then fold the long edges, allowing for quite a lot of overlap and sealing the dough with the side of your hand or fingertips.

The final fold on the long side should bring the loaf into a roll the right size to sit in the loaf tin.

Put the dough seam side down into the tin.

Shaping a round loaf

Pat the dough out into a rough circle on a lightly floured work-
surface.

Gently fold the dough by picking up the half to a third of the dough closest to you, stretching it a little over your fingers and onto the top of the main dough, then sealing it in with your fingertips.

Rotate the dough 5-6 times, each time folding the piece closest to you on top.

Gently round out the dough with the palms of your hands.

At this stage you can put the dough into a round banneton, smooth side down and seams at the top, or leave the dough on a lightly floured work-surface for 10 minutes and shape again before placing in the banneton.

This bread uses a small amount of milk and butter to soften the crust.

Ingredients

600g bread flour
290g water
100g milk
30g unsalted butter
1tsp fine salt
1tsp fast-action yeast

1. Heat the butter gently in a saucepan until melted. (If the weather is very cold you can also gently heat the milk a little.)

2. Combine the flour, yeast and salt in a mixing bowl.

3. Add the water, milk and melted butter. Mix so that all the flour is incorporated.

4. Knead the dough by stretching and folding it gently for about 5 minutes. The dough should become more resilient, holding its shape and becoming less sticky.

5. Return the dough to the bowl and cover with cling film. Leave at room temperature to double in size – about an hour.

6. Shape into a loaf tin: turn the dough out of the bowl onto a lightly floured work surface; pat into a rectangle about double the size of your loaf tin; fold in the short edges about 1 inch and seal with your fingertips; roll the dough up into a loaf shape and place in a tin seam-side down.

7. Cover the tin with oiled cling-film and leave at room temperature for about an hour until the dough feels light and puffy.

8. Preheat oven.

9. Bake the loaf at 180C for 45 minutes. Create some steam with a water sprayer or by pouring boiling water into a preheated metal tray.

10. Once baked, take the bread out of the oven and leave the loaf in the tin covered with a tea towel for 20 minutes to help soften the crusts.

This recipe scales up easily – just multiply the ingredients by the number of loaves you want to make. The bread freezes well. It is perfect for sandwiches, toast and anything else where you might be tempted to use the “white slice”.

It has a slightly richer flavour than a loaf just made with flour and water and the soft crusts have made this a firm favourite with children!