The easiest recipe for homemade bread you will ever need!

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The breads in the above photos were made at the Clarendon Hotel, Hebden. Some have had cranberries added and some black pudding. My recipe will be the basic plain bread, but feel free to experiment.

I'm so pleased to have been asked by the Leeds Teaching Hospital Trust, to get in involved in health and well being work. One of the team had seen my Facebook page. The first piece, is to contribute to the monthly Staff Health and Well Being Newsletter. I had recently been taught the easiest recipe for making bread, using fresh yeast and only 1 minute of kneading. This is perfect, for the newsletter, I thought. Bread has had such a bad reputation over the last few years, with lots of people avoiding gluten and carbohydrates. This is a shame, because unless you're a coeliac, real bread is healthy! Especially you use stoneground flour, which still includes the wheatgerm. There are many health benefits of wheatgerm.

I first read about the benefits of using organic stone ground flour, when I bought Rose Prince's book, The New English Kitchen in 2005,. It has been like a bible to me ever since.

I learnt this particular recipe, from my partner, Lionel Strub at the Clarendon Hotel, Hebden near Grassington. It is the easiest recipe for homemade bread I have ever been shown. The pub makes all it's own bread and no wonder with this recipe. We've been programmed over the years to think that bread making is hard, but with the right ingredients (which I will talk about) bread making can be easy. No need to buy that plastic spongey bread with lots of added nasties.

This recipe has 4 main ingredients, Organic Strong Flour, Fresh Yeast, Water and Salt. You can add olive oil to the white bread if you would like to but there is no need in the wholemeal. At the Clarendon they buy the flour wholesale from local mills. I buy mine from Cann Mills in Dorset, which was recommended in Rose Prince's book. When you buy big bags of 25kg the loaves end up costing around 60p to make and you know exactly what has gone into it. Don't ask me why but organic flour makes the best bread. I don't know myself it's just a given rule for most artisan bread makers. Maybe it's the type of wheat they use? Because has to be hardy against pests. By buying flour which has been ground using stone, in the traditional method, the wheatgerm is preserved, keeping in all the health benefits. White Flour which is milled in the modern way, does not have this and is therefore, devoid of any nutrition. The yeast you can buy at most supermarkets.

I will certainly be making bread more often now I have made this recipe.

RECIPE

WHITE BREAD

INGREDIENTS

500g Organic Strong White Flour

300 ml of lukewarm water ( ideally 35 - 40 degrees C, preferably 37 ) I used to achieve this using half boiling/half cold but if you have a temperature probe play around with it.

40g of fresh yeast

1 teaspoon of salt

2 tablespoons of olive oil (optional)

METHOD

1) Preheat your oven to 200 degrees C

2) Put your flour in a large bowl with the salt and whisk with a balloon whisk, this gets air into the mix straight away.

3) Crumble the yeast into the water and whisk into the water (add olive oil now if using).

4) Make a well in the centre of the flour and mix well with your hands. If it sticks to your hands it's too wet and you might need to add a little bit of flour. If it's too crumbly it's too dry and you may need to add tiny bits of water.

5) If it's the right consistency, when it's all mixed there should be nothing left in the bowl

6) Knead for 1 minute, and then cover with clingfilm.

7) Leave until it's doubled in size in a warmish place it will rise faster. (it should take around 30 minutes for this).

8) After it's doubled in size put your fists into it and "knock it back" this just means taking the air out of it and it should reduce in size.Then cover in clingfilm again and leave until it's back to double the size (around 30 minutes).

9) Then you can shape into whatever shape you want or even make into pizza dough. Sprinkle with flour before baking.

10) Bake in the oven for around 30 minutes.

WHOLEMEAL BREAD

For wholemeal bread you need a 50/50 mix, so you'll need 250g of strong wholemeal flour and 250g of strong white

Everything else is the same but you need 325ml of water instead of 300ml.

Wholemeal bread takes longer to rise and you don't need to put any oil in it.

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