Easy Bread and a cuppa for a cause

If you are like me the thought of making bread seems like too big of a chore and either use the bread machine or just don’t bother all together.

Well there has been alot of bread talk around of late and it is getting a little chilly here at the moment, so freshly baked bread was a must.

It is a basic white bread recipe, but it’s a good starting point and once you are confident enough you can experiment and add things to it.

Prep time

1 hour 30 mins

Cook time

40 mins

Total time

2 hours 10 mins

from Maggie's Table

Author: Cathie Small Kitchen Tales

Recipe type: Bread

Serves: 2 loaves

Ingredients

Method

combine yeast, sugar and a little warm water in a bowl, dissolve and set aside for 5-10 minutes. dry yeast should become frothy when active, if it doesn't froth up, don't use it as it will not be active
combine flour, salt and olive oil in a bowl, add yeast and then add 600ml of warm water and mix to combine. If you have an electric mixer with a dough hook use that and set it on low for about 3 minutes.
turn dough onto a floured surface an knead for a further 5 minutes or until the dough feels tight and the surface appears slightly broken
spray the bowl with olive oil and place the dough back in it and cover loosely with plastic
leave in a warm place to double in size, around 35-45 minutes
turn dough onto floured surface and knead lightly for a few minutes, divide mixture and shape into 2 large loaves
spray tins with olive oil spray and sprinkle a little flour and place loaves in tins and leave in a warm place for a second rise, around 15-20 minutes
preheat oven at 220 C
put loaves in and bake for 10 minutes, reduce temperature to 180 C and bake for a further 20-25 minutes, remove bread from tins and place on oven rack and bake for a further 5-10 minutes to crisp the crusts. If you tap on the bottom of the loaf it should sound hollow.
turn out onto wire racks and allow to cool