Yeah, what we're going to do today is,
we're going to show you how easy bread-making can be.
I suppose for a lot of us, we've actually almost kind of forgotten
what bread actually tastes like.
So what I'm going to do is show you how easy bread-making can be
and let us get back to what we're calling 'real bread.'
The great thing about this recipe, is it's the great all-rounder,
it's the foundation, the base from where everything comes from.
So from a very simple white dough,
we can make a little foccacia, we can make some pizza bases,
some burger buns,
or a very simple, beautiful white loaf.
But it's very, very simple.
We're simply using some strong white flour.
A little bit of salt. We're going to be working
with some fresh yeast, which I'll talk about in a couple of minutes.
A little bit of water and some olive oil. Five simple ingredients
So long as you got a pair of hands and an oven in which to bake it,
you're pretty much good to go.
500 grams of strong white flour.
And to that, we're adding about 10 grams of sea salt.
A little bit of salt heightens the flavour of everything else.
Same applies to bread.
So always mix your salt through the flour. With this recipe,
we're going to be using some fresh yeast.
So this is fresh yeast. I don't know if you've seen it,
or ever used it, but don't get too hung up over fresh versus dried.
If I was using about 20 grams of fresh, it would be
about 7 grams of dried, which is exactly one sachet.
So you will get a lot of recipes, suggesting
you must dissolve the yeast in water with a spoonful of sugar.
That's an absolute myth.
Refined sugar is too complex. Yeast does not need it.
Sugar is only added to bread for flavour and for colour.
Yeast would be perfectly fine without it.
Just crumble your yeast straight in.
So we're using 10 grams of fresh yeast.
You're probably looking at about half a sachet
if you were using dried yeast.
So then to that, we're going to be using some water.
To be honest, water straight out of your cold tap is fine.
Because all that's going to happen if it's a little bit colder,
it's going to take a little bit longer.
The harder the yeast has to work, the more your flavour develops
and the better the dough is for you.
What's a little bit different about this dough
we're going to enrich it with a little bit of olive oil.
The idea of the olive oil is it just adds a little bit of fat.
It just helps give that bit of richness into your dough.
So we're adding about 30 mls, two tablespoons.
And once you've got all your ingredients together,
just slowly start bringing everything together.
Once it comes together,
we're simply dumping it straight out
onto the table.
So most recipes at this stage say you have to knead your dough.
Which you do, because at the moment
the gluten is formed, but it's quite weak.
So we build up the strength of our dough by kneading.
Most recipes suggest 8-10 minutes, most of them are lying.
And it puts a lot of people off. Basically, all we're going to do
is knead it for about 10 seconds.
You will find it a little bit sticky, a little bit messy.
But don't worry. Everyone's reaction at home,
is to immediately reach for some flour.
Avoid the temptation to add flour - we do not need it.
So simply...That's it. That's all we're going to do.
Ten seconds of kneading, straight back in a bowl
because we're going to leave it for ten minutes.
By letting it relax, the gluten can relax,
it start to develop and what we're going to do
is after 10 minutes, we're going to come back to it.
We'll knead it for 10 seconds, let it rest again.
And we'll do that three times. So basically it takes 30 seconds of your time.
Straight out onto our table once more.
And again we're going to knead it for another 10 seconds.
All I'm doing is using the heat of my hand,
pushing the dough away and hooking it back.
You can use one hand, you can use two hands, whatever you like.
Simply 10 seconds, that's all we're looking for.
Simply pop it back into the bowl.
We'll let the dough rest again for another 10 minutes.
And that is our dough done.
Basically, we're at the exact same point we would be
had we stood here and kneaded our dough for 10 to 15 minutes.
But by doing this, you can continue on with your life
and it takes very, very little effort
and Mother Nature is doing all the hard work for you.
So if you're ever wondering if you've kneaded it sufficiently,
the dough will always tell you.
There's a thing called the 'window-pane' effect.
The idea is we should be able to stretch the dough
until it's virtually see-through.
It should be able to sustain its own weight,
without ripping, without tearing.
You see that membrane, you see the shadows?
That's exactly what we're looking for.
If you find that the dough is ripping and tearing,
that's just the dough telling you it's not ready yet.
But we can see it's holding lovely,
no problem whatsoever, so our dough is good to go.
Okay, a little drop of olive oil.
Sunflower oil will work fine too. Pop it straight into your bowl.
This just basically stops the dough from sticking.
Also, by having a tiny bit of olive oil,
you'll find the dough much easier to handle.
And much easier to manipulate and you'll find
it won't stick to your hands as much. We'll pop our dough
into a bowl.
I'm going to leave it prove, for about an hour.
Probably our biggest problem as adults
is we tend to over-think absolutely everything
and we tend to follow recipes religiously.
But because bread is affected by variables,
by the temperature of the liquid you use,
the temperature of your room, if you find that your dough
hasn't doubled in size, don't be afraid to give it more time.
Or if you've used slightly warmer liquid,
or your kitchen is quite warm and you find
that your dough is jumping up, again, just crack on.
Once we bring it back after it's proved,
you'll find that your dough is doubled in size. So this dough...
Now I've made a little bit extra because I want to show you
how versatile and how simple this dough is.
And you're not just confined to one type of bread with it.
So what we need to do at this stage,
is we need to knock our dough back.
So by knocking it back, we simply knock all the air from it.
We stop that cycle.
And then we start a new one.
Because as bread proves,
that's when all the magic happens.
It's when the yeast gets to work
it breaks down the natural sugars within the dough.
It produces carbon dioxide and your dough begins to rise.
So if you ever want to know a little secret to great bread,
it's time. You've gotta give it time.
Because the difference in what we do here
versus the commercial process, they're trying to speed it up,
we're trying to slow it right down.
So with our little bit of dough,
we're going to make a simple white loaf enriched with olive oil.
We're going to make a little foccacia.
And we're going to make some burger buns,
perfect for the barbecue, perfect for those sandwiches,
kids going back to school, basically a great all-rounder.
If you're not used to portioning dough,
feel free to use a weighing scales.
You've kind of put all the hard work in so far,
so it's kind of nice to get them nice and accurate.
When you're doing any little bread rolls, little brown rolls,
the idea is the dough sits across your knuckles,
so roll from here into here.
The secret is, really put pressure.
Push the dough into the table.
Go big. Pressure on the table.
Your hand starts to come up, a bit like a claw.
Go a little bit quicker, you should have a nice little ball.
And don't worry if you ever roll them
and you find they're a little bit scraggy,
just give them an initial roll, bring them all together.
You can always come back and give them a second roll
that will tighten them up that little bit more.
So about 100 grams is a perfect portion
for a generous sized burger bun at home.
which works absolutely great.
So now, for our foccacia. With this one,
you can afford to use a little bit more flour,
because we have to pick the whole thing up off the table.
So you all know that foccacia is that lovely Italian flatbread.
It's characterised by all those little dimples on top.
The idea being, as you're shaping it,
we're simply just using the pads of our fingers.
We're just walking our fingers through the dough.
By creating those lovely little dimples,
when we drizzle on lots of olive oil,
they're going to act as pockets. As the pockets collects the oil,
the dough is going to soak it up as it's proving.
But as you work the dough, you'll find it naturally wants to shrink.
So instead of fighting with the dough, just leave it alone.
Give it 20, 30 seconds break. It allows the gluten to relax
and you've put in half the amount of effort.
This is kind of a good time to go off and get your toppings
and get your bits and pieces ready.
So by the time you come back, your dough is relaxed
and we continue to shape it up.
While we're letting it relax, we'll show you
how to make a very simple white loaf tin.
You kind of start from a lovely round base.
Simply all you do, flip it over.
Taking both sides, not ripping it
just stretch it ever so slightly
and fold them into the centre.
Let each one overlap the last.
So taking the piece that is closet to you,
you kind of fold it over.
And then seal it down at the seam.
Keep going in the same direction and as you fold it over,
almost tuck it back in on itself.
Nice and gentle, you're not ripping your fingers into it.
Kind of like you're rolling up a towel, get it really tight.
A little roll up.
Then we've a perfect little parcel.
We've got our little loaf tin. A little dusting of flour.
Depending on the tin you're using, if you're afraid it'll stick,
you can always line it with parchment paper.
Gonna make no problem to your dough.
So you'll see our little seam to the bottom.
It simply goes straight in to our tin.
As we come back to our foccacia,
again, just walking your fingers through the dough.
Again, you're not trying to put your fingers through it.
Just simply walking it straight through
and the dough will naturally stretch itself out.
So we're just going to take our tray.
My trays are probably slightly bigger than yours,
but that's all we need.
Just take a nice generous drizzle of olive oil.
And you're simply taking your dough straight onto the tray.
Again, don't be shy.
And don't worry if the dough... You can always reshape it
once it's actually on the tray.
See all those lovely little dimples, you can see
where the oil is collecting, that's exactly what we want.
Really, when it comes to your toppings,
your flavour combination, anything you absolutely like.
Whatever your personal preference is.
Whatever you got in the cupboard.
So we're going to take a little bit of broccoli.
And cherry tomatoes.
And again, don't be afraid to kind of push the toppings in.
And then a little bit of red onion as well.
And don't be shy when it comes to your toppings.
Because you think you've got loads, but then as the dough...
Because we're going to let it prove again,
as it proves out, it sometimes can look
a little sparse, so be nice and generous.
One last drizzle of olive oil.
Really generous.
And again, just forcing those toppings in.
So now we've got our foccacia.
We've got our beautiful white tin proving away.
And we've got some perfectly formed little burger buns.
I'm going to top each one of them with some seeds.
To make them stick, take a little damp cloth.
And all you do, into the damp cloth
And straight into your seeds.
So you get it beautifully...
That damp cloth makes it act like glue. Makes it stick.
We've brought all this together out of 1500 grams of flour.
Of course you can work away with 500 grams, make one little loaf.
But for the exact same amount of effort,
you could have a foccacia proving,
your loaf tin growing beautifully in its tin
and some beautiful burger buns - and what did it take?
15 seconds of kneading and a little bit of shaping.
Absolutely no reason why not to give this a go at home.
So our doughs have had about 45 to 50 minutes.
You can see our loaf tin has grown beautifully,
right to the top of the tin.
When it comes to proving your bread, only ever prove it 80%.
The idea is, the last 20 will come in the oven.
It's called the 'oven spring'. It's got a nice little bounce to it.
No fear of it collapsing, that's exactly what we want.
The idea is, as it hits the heat, it's going to jump.
Again, our foccacia is good to go.
And you can see how it has started to spread out,
even though it had loads and loads of toppings on it.
You want to give it one final drizzle of olive oil.
Then we're going to finish it with a little bit of sea salt.
We only apply it to it just before it goes in the oven,
because the idea is we don't want the salt to dissolve.
So when you eat into it later on,
it's got that salty, crunchy bite to it.
Our little burger buns are ready to go.
Perfect size.
Exactly what we want.
So when it comes to baking the breads, again,
don't be afraid to turn that oven temperature up.
You want at least 230 degrees.
We all cook everything at 180. We need that high temperature.
That's what bread wants. We want to keep that beautiful crust.
And then with our yeasted breads,
one thing we're going to really need is some steam.
A great way to create steam at home,
is when you pre-heat your oven, get a roasting tray.
Get it really red hot and you've simply got some boiling water
and I'm just going to pour that straight in,
which is going to release a lovely blast of steam
into my oven.
So that will help my dough rise.