High hydration dough
Bread. Steaming hot from the oven slathered with butter and drizzled with honey. Nothing tastes quite as good as that. I love making my own bread at home, knowing that my creation feeds my family. And after years of recipe trials, I finally found my golden combination of flour, water and yeast.
We like to have a soft crust on our bread, which is easier on little people’s teeth. There is a time for artisan looking crusty bread, but I prefer to keep those times for when I have a cheese board to go with it. For the rest of the week, we like our bread to be a plain sandwich type bread. So that they will fit easily into our toaster. Speaking of our toaster, did you know we didn’t have one for over 5 years. I used to toast my bread in one of my cast iron skillets. But with more of our people wanting to eat toast in our home, a toaster became increasingly crucial for our breakfast.
High hydration dough
One of the reasons why I love this bread so much is because it is not only easy to do, but it also stays fresh for longer. Because of the high moisture content in the dough (75%), it doesn’t go stale as quickly as most loaves of bread. However, that high hydration of the dough also means that if I were to knead it in the traditional manner, I would have extremely sticky hands. So I save myself a lot of mess and effort by keeping my dough in its bowl and using the stretch and fold method.
Stretch and fold your bread dough
The stretch and fold method is pretty self-explanatory, it’s simply the act of grabbing a piece of your dough, stretching it upwards and folding it over your dough ball. You simply continue doing just that all around the bowl. I like to do the stretching and folding 3 times and waiting 30 minutes in between each stretch. That way, the gluten has some more time to develop and give a pleasant structure to your bread. The truly magical thing about doing it this way, is that every time, you feel that the dough has changed. When you knead the regular way, you also feel the dough changing, but it feels much less magical because it seems to change so slowly. But by waiting 30 minutes in between stretching and folding, the change feels far more drastic.
Eventually, and this is when you know it’s ready, it feels bouncy and smooth, almost sensual. When it reaches this point, you can roll it up and place it into the loaf tin. Leave it to rise until it has just reached the top of the tin and then bake in a hot oven.
No matter if you prefer your bread to be crusty or fluffy, I hope you enjoy making this bread. And if you want to make some more bread dough, why not try this delicious pizza recipe.
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Daily bread
Equipment
- two 2lb loaf tins or four 1lb loaf tins
Ingredients
- 750 gr plain flour
- 250 gr oat flour or wholewheat flour
- 800 ml water room temp
- 3 tsp yeast
- pinch salt
Instructions
- Weigh out the flour into a big bowl, then add in the oat flour (see below for instructions) add a pinch of salt to the flour and mix well, yeast doesn't like to touch salt.
- Measure out the yeast and add to the bowl and give a quick mix, then add in the water and mix well with a wooden spoon.
- Once everything is mixed together, give the bowl a good scrape and give the dough a quick stretch and fold.
- Stretch and fold: You pick up one side of your dough and lift it up, then you fold it over the dough. You continue this all-around your dough ball. You know when to fold it because when you stretch it feels as if it might almost break.
- You leave the dough to rest for 30 to 45 minutes depending on the room's temperature, if it's warmer it will have doubled in size quicker. While resting you cover the dough with a clean wet tea towel.
- After having doubled in size you stretch and fold it again, you do this 3 times in total, after which it should be stretchy and smooth.
- Then you divide up the dough for the greased loaf tins. I use 400 gr for my 2 smaller loaf tins (1lb) and put the remainder 1000 gr in my big loaf tin (2lb). Let them rest under a clean wet tea towel until the dough has almost risen to the brim, then remove the tea towel to prevent the dough from sticking to it.
- It is a good idea to preheat your oven to 220 °C before the dough has fully risen to the brim of the tin since you will want to put it into the oven then.
- Once the bread has fully risen to your liking you bake it in a preheated oven for 25 to 35 minutes, depending on how crusty you like your bread. I bake mine for 25 minutes so that my crust remains nice and soft.
- For a cleaner cut when you slice your bread, wait till the bread has completely cooled down.
Make oat flour from rolled oats
- Using either a submerging blender or a food processor, blitz the oats, doing small batches at a time. Once the oats resemble coarse flour you can use it how you would use wholewheat flour.
