Easy Bake White Loaf (option with sun-dried tomato and parmesan) This is the
Easy Bake White Loaf (option with sun-dried tomato and parmesan)
This is the staple in our household, an 800g white loaf baked in a 2lb loaf tin. It’s good for sandwiches and can take savoury and sweet added ingredients to keep the family interested.
In the second picture, I’ve added parmesan and sun-dried tomatoes to liven it up for you, but you can leave these out if you want a ‘general purpose’ loaf, or add in alternative, complementary ingredients, for example, cheese and herb, cheese and onion, tomato and basil.
Ingredients
- 500g Strong White Flour
- 7g 'Easy Bake’ powdered yeast
- 6g Salt (10g without parmesan)
- 20ml Olive or rapeseed oil
- 300ml water
- Optional
- 30g Parmesan
- 30g Sun-dried tomatoes.
Method
Mixing
Put the flour, dried yeast and salt into a bowl, mix well then drizzle the olive oil in and mix. A hand whisk is a good way to distribute the dry elements and incorporate the oil.
Slowly add about half of the water, incorporating it into the flour mix. The water should be at room temperature, or if your kitchen is cold warm it up to around 26c. This will help the fermentation along.
Now add the finely grated parmesan and finely chopped sun-dried tomatoes to the mix using your hand or a spatula to mix them in well.
Add the rest of the water, mix well and start needing. After a few minutes by hand (or mixer), you should begin to see the dough coming together nicely with a smooth texture. You may need to spend 5-10 minutes on this depending on the effort put into it. I find a mixer on slow/medium speed with a dough hook for 3-5 minutes is sufficient.
Prooving (or proofing)
Cover and rest for an hour or two at around 26c again, or until the dough has risen between 30-50% at least. Knock the dough back and leave to rise again. If you are in a hurry, and have a good rise already, transfer straight to your loaf tin and let it rise for the second time in the tin.
You should be able to get through this process over 2-3 hours. If you practise the recipe a few times, you’ll work out if you need to adjust the quantity of ingredients and prooving timeline to suit your own setup.
Shaping
When the dough is ready, decide how you want to shape and bake it. You could use a tin, a set of small tins or make it into a round and bake it on a tray. Now leave the dough to rise again, 20-30 minutes may be enough, keep checking as you don’t want it to overflow the tin.
You may want to water spray the final shaped loaf, dust with flour and then slash the top to prevent it splitting on the side when baked.
Baking
Bake in a domestic oven at 230c for ten minutes reducing to 160c for a further 30-40 minutes. Again, you may need to adjust the temperature and time a bit depending on how well proved your dough is and what type of loaf you want, leave it in for longer with a higher initial temperature for a dark brown crust, for example.
If you want a softer crust, put a tray in the bottom of the oven and throw a cup of water in to create steam. This works a treat when dividing your dough into eight large rolls and baking on a tray, for example, the rolls will have a softer crust.
If you used a tin, then the loaf should come out easily once properly baked, tap it to see if you get a hollow sound, if you do, it’s ready to remove from the tin(s) and leave to cool on a rack. If you don’t get that hollow tap, simply pop it back into the oven for another ten minutes.
Eating
Don’t forget to slice a piece off and plaster with butter after 15 minutes, while it’s still warm. You do need to make sure it’s edible after all.