Home Baked Bread (Continued)

It has been a good time for bread making, and my baking of the celery bread was pretty good, unfortunately there was no recipe.  The baking continues, and I am pleased to tell you that I am sharing the recipes with you.  Today is about  'rustic bread'
Rustic bread means unconventional looking, can be round or other shape.  But it has special characters; a heavy crust, chewy inside, but soft crumbs and flavourful.  It uses very simple ingredients.

Through reading and comparing recipes of bread making, today I decided to do country bread with a rustic look.  I learn from a few recipes, one of them that interests me the most was 'proofing the dough overnight-refrigerated'.  It's going to help me better and also helping one who is working during the day.  Prepare the dough at night, continue the process the next day, and you could have the freshly baked bread in your own kitchen.  Here is the recipe.

Rustic Round Bread.

Ingredients

3 cups heap full plain flour

1teaspoon salt

1teaspoon honey

1 packet dry yeast

1½ cup warm water

Method

In a large bowl place the flour, salt and yeast, mix them together

Stir in the warm water and honey

Mix together to make a soft ball, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate over night.

The next day, take the dough out, and knead lightly, put it back in the bowl.  Keep in a room temperature about one hour.

Knead lightly again, shape the dough to a round and place it in a baking tin

Let the dough rise again about 33 minutes, then brush the dough with water, rub it with extra flour and score it well.

Bake in a very hot oven at 225 degrees C (fan forced) for 25-30 until brown.

(Put hot water on a tray and place it in the bottom of the oven during the baking, the steam helps to form a crusty crust.}

Transfer the bread on a wire rack to cool.  Serve, sliced when it is cold.

Proofing bread in the fridge slows down the fermentation, and the flavour develop better.  Loaves proofed in the fridge hold their shape better when baked, and for the practicality side of it, it is good for one who is working during the day, one could bake the bread in the morning to have fresh bread.

The Process and The Baking

The ingredients are mixed together to make the dough

The dough is ready to refrigerate

The look of the dough in the following morning
(it has risen well)

Punch the down and knead lightly again
The dough is ready for shaping

The dough can be sticky, rub your hand with flour and dust the work surface with flour also for easy kneading.

Knead lightly

Knead until smooth

Shape into a good round then proof it again

After proofing, scoring the dough before baking is essential

Deep scoring the dough 

A beautiful look of rustic round bread
(freshly baked)

Maybe my oven is too hot, I must reduce to 210 degrees C to bake it for 30 minutes.  The bread looks so dark.

We waited until the bread was completely cold to taste.  It is served with butter, and also I prepared sun dried tomato spread.  It's a good bread, crusty on the outside and soft and smooth in side.  The dark crust was no good,  I cut the bread and the dark crust ruined the look, made crumbs and give a little bitter taste.

A slice of the rustic round crusty bread

 The sliced bread with sun dried tomato spread, or simply spread it on with a lot of butter.

The next day, to serve the bread has to be warmed up to get the crust stays hard and crisp.  Heat it up in a hot oven for ten minutes also prior serving.

Hot and crusty - the bread after 10 minutes reheat in a hot oven.

 I cut and slice when it was hot from the oven 

I think the bread making continues, next time maybe crusty rolls, served with hot home made soup.  Stay tuned.


Enjoy the recipe and happy baking.

Until Next Post
Susy