10 March, 2008

Bread: changing technique


The thing I love about baking my own bread is that it is takes up very little of my time for such an excellent reward. You do, I admit, have to be around the kitchen to bake, but you don't have to be working the bread the whole time - far from it. Recently I have adopted a slightly more involved method which is from Dan Lepard of The Handmade Loaf. Instead of kneading for 10 minutes in one go, you knead for 10 seconds every 10 minutes about four times before leaving the bread to rise a little longer, and then rise much longer (but still only about 1 1/2 hours) in the tins. Works very well. Good texture to the bread and it really is amazing how if you leave the mixed up mess without kneading for 10 minutes at first, and then give it a quick going over, it quickly forms this lovely textured ball of dough.

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