One of your favourite and let’s accept it, fastest breakfast options — pre-packaged bread — is under fire because it may have cancer-causing chemicals. So why not just bake it at home? Here are a few recipes that are easy to bake in your own kitchen. After all, what’s better than a home that smells of freshly baked bread?
Basic bread
Ingredients
- 2 cups whole wheat flour
- 2 tsp dry yeast
- 2 tbsp oil
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 1 cup water
Method
Mix all the dry ingredients. Rub in the oil and knead with water to make a smooth and soft dough.
Make the dough into a long shape and place it in an oiled bread tin for proofing or the yeast to grow for 40 minutes. When the dough has risen. place it in a pre-heated oven at 225ºC for 35 minutes. Your bread is ready.
Spinach bread
Ingredients
- 2 cups whole wheat flour
- 2 tsp dry yeast
- 2 tbsp oil
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tbsp sugar
- water based on your requirement
- 1½ cups of finely pureed spinach ½ tsp of roasted jeera
Method
Mix all the dry ingredients. Rub in the oil and knead with the spinach puree, then add water as needed to make a smooth and soft dough. Then follow the recipe for the basic bread.
Pita bread
Ingredients
- 1 kg refined flour
- 24 gm dry yeast
- 20 gm salt
- 30 ml olive oil
- 20 gm milk powder
- 24 gm castor sugar
- 12 gm gluten
- 550 ml water
- ½ tsp of roasted jeera
Method
Preheat the oven to 260°C. If you have a baking stone, put it in the oven to heat. If you don’t have a baking stone, place a large baking sheet on the middle rack to heat. Sieve the flour into a bowl, add yeast, sugar, salt and the rest of the ingredients and blend with a spoon. Add a little bit of water and start mixing. After mixing for a while, the dough should become elastic. When done, cover it with a kitchen towel and let it sit in a warm place, for at least 20 minutes, until it doubles in size.
Take the dough out and knead a little bit with your hands. Split in evenly sized portions. To form the pita bread, you can either use a rolling pin, or stretch it with your hands, about 1 cm thick. Place the rolled-out pitas on the baking sheet and bake for three minutes.
Pretzels
Ingredients
For the dough
- 1 kg plain white flour
- 260 ml milk (lukewarm)
- 260 ml water (lukewarm)
- 80 gm butter (unsalted)
- 1 tbsp malt extract or brown sugar
- 42 gm fresh yeast
- 2 tbsp salt
For the finishing solution
- 1 litre water
- 3 tbsp baking soda
For topping
- Unrefined salt (rock/ sea salt) or cheese
Method
Add 100 gm of flour, all the yeast and the water into a bowl. Mix, cover with cling-film and leave in a warm place for five hours plus to create the yeast flavour. After that, add the rest of the flour, salt, milk, malt extract or brown sugar and melted butter. Mix and knead the mixture to make a firm dough (around 10 minutes) and leave for approximately one-and-a-half hours.
When ready, knock the dough back and start forming shapes and if you’re feeling adventurous you can try to recreate the traditional pretzel shape. Leave for 30 minutes uncovered in a warm room to rise.
In the meantime bring the 1 litres of water to a boil in a large pot and add the baking soda. Once the dough has risen, place the trays under a fan to help the pretzels develop a ‘skin’. Once done, drop the shaped dough into the boiling solution until they float . Remove and lay on a baking tray lined with baking paper.
Sprinkle with sea salt and slash the dough to a depth of around 1cm in the thick part at the top-back. If you want to top with cheese, leave off the salt, and add the cheese once the pretzel is baked. If you’re adding the cheese, then let it stay for an extra 5 to 10 minutes in the oven.
Add the baking sheets to a 200ºC oven for around 16 minutes, until a nice deep bread brown is seen on the pretzels.
Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely on a wire rack. They taste good warm, but better when cooled and crisped.
Dark Rye Sourdough
Ingredients
For the starter
- 125 gm dark rye flour
- 125 ml water
- 1 tbsp mature starter (it is the starter dough made out of water, flour and natural yeast that is allowed to ferment for two weeks)
Final dough
- 350 gm dark rye flour
- 150 gm white bread flour
- 10 gm salt
- 1 tsp caraway seeds
- 250 gm rye sourdough starter (see step one)
- 475 gm warm water
- 3 gm gluten
- 3 gm improver (a mix of
- various acids and enzymes that strengthen the gluten)
- 2 gm GMS powder
Method
Building the starter
First build: Take one tbsp of mature starter and add it to 50 gm of rye flour and 50 ml of room temperature filtered water. Let sit for between 8 to 12 hours at room temperature.
Second build: Add 75 grams of rye flour and 75 grams of room temperature filtered water to the first build. Let sit for 8 to 12 hours at room temperature.
Mixing, proofing and shaping
Combine the 250 gram of starter with 475 gram of warm water. Mix in the rest of the ingredients until everything is fully integrated and there are no more bits of dry flour. No kneading is necessary. Let the dough rest in a covered container for half an hour.
Dust a counter or cutting board with flour. Rub your hands in some flour to prevent sticking. Dump the dough onto your work surface and form into a round shape.
Dust heavily with rye flour. Place the dough in a bowl and cover. Let it proof at room temperature for approximately three hours.
Baking
A half hour before you’re ready to bake, pre-heat the oven to 200ºC. Bake for 20 minutes.
After 20 minutes remove the cover from the oven and bake for another 20 minutes or until it is dark and the cracks in the loaf are just starting to burn. Cool the loaf before consumption.
