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Sad to say I didn't make this goal of a year of writing up my Bread with Elizabeth, but I did make a year of very yummy bread from her book.

Make your own bread, its a happy, healthy, fulfilling and enjoyable pass time.

Brown oatmeal bread

I experimented with a new bread recipe from the book today, brown oatmeal bread, as Elizabeth David says ' oatmeal on its own would make a very flat loaf, but a small proportion mixed with a strong brown or white flour makes excellent bread with a wonderful rich flavour." p. 282

Elizabeth uses an inverted ovenproof ceramic bowl to bake the bread in the oven, this is called 'undercover bread baking' (see p.303) this is an old cottage bakers method for getting lots of steam into the bread and for making a good crust.

I have to say, as you can see from the photo, the bread wasn't a 'high riser' but this was partly my fault as I mistakenly used rolled oats instead of oatmeal flour - d'oh! Also, to quote Elizabeth again: "Although the volume of this loaf will be much increased by using the above under-cover method of baking, oatmeal bread never rises as much as a loaf made entirely with wheat flour. The crust, thogh, is particularly successful" p.282

Brown oatmeal bread p. 282
As always I use all organic ingredients where possible

400 gms wholemeal bread flour
120 gms medium oatmeal (I only had rolled oats and I think that was my 'mistake')
15 gm compressed fresh yeast
15 - 20 gms salt
1 - 2 tablespoons pouring cream
1/4 litre warm water

Large oven proof ceramic bowl and baking sheet or oven proof ceramics platter for baking.

Mix the two flours in your bowl, with the salt, pop into a warm oven for around 7 minutes to warm through. Mix yeast to a cream with a little warm water and cream. When your flour is warm, add the yeast mixture and stir into the flour. Add the rest of your cream and warm water.

Mix to a fairly moist dough and leave to rise for a couple of hours. Use the rising directions in the Basic bread recipe.

Break down the dough, knead it briefly, about 3 - 5 minutes, using a little extra oatmeal to dry it out if necessary (Ed: mine was very, very wet, probably because of the rolled oats instead of oatmeal so I added quite a bit more wheatmeal). Form it into a round loaf, folds tucked underneath. Turn it upside down into a floured wooden or ceramic bowl and leave to rise, or prove, for a second time of approximately 45 minutes.

Turn your risen bread onto an ovenproof earthenware platter, bottom side down. Cut six fairly deep criss-cross cuts, with a sharp knife, so that the top of the loaf is chequered.  As soon as the cuts open up, which should be almost immediately, put the loaf in the oven.

The next bit is really interesting because you use the bowl, inverted over the top of your dough and platter as a cover when baking the bread. This keeps the loaf moist and helps it to rise higher, its Robert May's French bread system of the book, p.313.

If possible bake by the undercover method at 230oC leaving the loaf covered for 20 minutes, then uncover and gradually reduce temperatures over the next 40 minutes. Elizabeth doesn't say how gradually so I used the method in the Basic bread.

Even with the wrong flour, the loaf turned out well and was scrumptious, nutty and very flavoursome. I'll try again with the proper flour next time and see if there is any difference.

A basic loaf

This is the first bread recipe in Elizabeth David's, English Bread and Yeast Cookery, its on p.256, you reach it after reading through the first third of the book which talks about milling processes, different bread flours, working with yeast, the importance of salt, the use of eggs, fruit and fats in bread, bread ovens, storage, moulds and tins, weights and measures and much more.

All of this information is helpful if your a theory sort of person, I'm not so much, but because Elizabeth writes so well I was drawn in, fascinated by all her research and her diatribes. I particularly enjoyed her damnation of contemporary supermarket, plastic wrapped bread, as relevant today as in the 1970's.

I've made this loaf twice now, the first time I only used 100% stone ground, organic, wholemeal (or wheatmeal as the recipe calls it) bread flour as it was the only bread flour I had in the house. I was very pleased with it, especially as it was my first try at using fresh yeast in many a year. You can see it here on the right, it came out with firm crust and a good bread crumb. It was lovely to eat, very nutty, but a tad heavy and dense, great for toast but a bit too heavy for sandwiches.

Today I gave it another go, this time with the correct proportions of the two different flours, exactly as stated in the recipe, and it is equally delicious and much lighter, it also produced a much bigger loaf and I had to use my larger loaf tin. As with the loaf above, its great to eat on its own with good organic butter, but also works as sandwich bread and as toast. It has a nutty, wheaty flavour which we like very much.

The bread is very easy to make, nothing complicated in the recipe, it only has five ingredients, the two flours, salt, compressed yeast and warm water. The most important thing is to have all your ingredients warm to assist the yeast growing and although the recipe doesn't specify it, I use organic flour (from the Blue Mountain Co-Op, their flour is excellent and they have a great variety to choose from as well). Its also important to use bread flour as it is stronger than cake flour, i.e. it has more gluten.

The basic loaf

Bread tin: a kilo loaf tin, 8cm deep, capacity1.5-2 litres

550g plain unbleached bread flour

450g wheatmeal bread flour

15g bakers compressed yeast or 10g dried yeast (I used compressed)

20g rock or sea salt (if using rock salt, disolve it in warm water first)

340g water at blood heat

Oil or fat to grease bread tin

Put flours and salt into a heat proof bowl and put into a slow oven to warm, for about 10 minutes, don't burn it though. While warming the flour, put compressed yeast into a cup with a small amount of blood warm water, this brings it to life after being dormant in the fridge.

Take flours and salt mix out of oven, mix yeast up to a creamy consistency, then pour the creamed yeast into the centre of the flour. Add some tepid water and stir it around with the yeast, use a wooden spoon. Pour in rest of tepid water and mix it all together with your hands. I love this bit, messy and creative, what's not to like! If its too sticky add in a bit more flour, work the dough until it feels elastic and lithe and comes easily away from the bowl sides. This takes about 3-4 minutes. Cover the bowl with some plastic wrap and set aside in a draft free place to rise for 1 1/2 to 2 hours (I like 2, Elizabeth says the longer the rise, the better the bread). During this time the dough will more than double in size.

OK, dough has risen, next you get to bang the dough about, great tension release! First punch the dough down with your fist, then gather it up and bang it into your bowl a few times. This is called punching down or knocking back. It redistributes the yeast gas bubbles through your dough and helps the gluten to develop, all good things. Now take it out and knead it for 3 - 4 minutes, put some flour down first so your dough doesn't stick to your board or bench. You can use a mixer with a dough hook, but manual is much more pleasurable.

Warm your bread tin while kneading the dough, grease it with a little oil or butter. Shape your dough into a loaf shape, with the folds underneath. Put into warmed bread tin, cover with plastic wrap again and let rise for 45 minutes.

As you can see it will rise out of the tin! About 30 minutes into the rising, turn your oven on to 220-230oC, when the 45 minutes is up, take off the plastic wrap and pop into your hot oven. Bake 15 minutes, then drop temperature to 205oC and bake a further 15 minutes, then remove bread from tin, return to oven on its side and bake at 180oC for a further 20 minutes.

Your bread is ready when your knock it on its base with your knuckles and it gives out a resonant sound. It should be golden brown all over, like the photo on the right. Cool the bread across the bread tin or on a cake rack.

Elizabeth says that 'this type of bread is not good until its quite cold and in fact does not develop its full flavour until the next day' (p.260) and all bread recipes say to let your bread cool completely before cutting..... bet you can't though, I never can! It tastes delicious hot, delicious cold, delicious the day after and for days after. It keeps well in our bread box, it freezes well (but not till completely cold). If you wrap it while still warm, the crust will soften though.

Elizabeth goes on to discuss the recipe and adaptions, use of yeast, slow risings and other interesting things, but I shall chat about these issues in another post, after I have tried them.

Real bread - the staff of life

I used to make real bread in another life time, but as good artisan breads came back on the market over the years, I chose to buy rather than bake. Over the Christmas and New Year holiday we ran out of good bread and I tried my hand at bread making again, it was such a pleasure and I posted about it on Blue Mountain Bliss .

I had forgotten the satisfaction, the immediacy of bread making; the feel of the dough under my hands, the smell of the bread in the oven, the first slice from the cooled loaf. The taste of sandwiches made with home baked bread and produce from the garden can not be beaten by the best of chefs to my mind.

I enjoyed the process so much that I hunted out my Elizabeth David English Bread and Yeast Cookery book and started reading. Flipping through the pages, seeing the stains from that earlier me who used it, enjoying once again the insight Elizabeth David brought to bread making, the historical aspects, the quotes from other authors, all inspired me even more. I decided that it would be an enjoyable project o work my way through English Bread and Yeast Cookery throughout the year, making recipes that catch my eye, or are seasonal, Easter breads,  etc. I don't intend to make all of the recipes by any means, but I hope to make something from each of the sections, improve my bread making skills and chat about the process.

Join me in my discoveries, let's make real bread in 2010!