Cruisers and their bread… There is something very satisfying in making your own. When I was a kid my dad taught me how to make bread and ever since I make it more or less the same way. Jasper added an interesting slamming technique to it, which makes the bread even more airy. There are several other ways to do it, and a thousand variations. This is just a simple white bread with a nice crust. Nothing beats fresh bread in the morning (not true, pancakes do)!
What you need:
- Flour
- Yeast
- Water
- Olive oil
- Salt
Steps to do:
Dissolve the dry yeast with lukewarm water in a cup. Add a little sugar to ‘wake up’ the yeast. Once you see bubbles, you know the yeast is active.
Put the flour in a bowl. Make a hole in the middle. This is where you will pour the yeast in. Spread the salt around it, as far as possible from the yeast-hole. Salt and yeast are no friends.
Pour the yeast in the hole together with two spoons of olive oil and a little water. Use the spoon to mix the yeast with the oil and the flour by making the hole bigger and bigger, adding more water but not too much at once.
Knead the bread. If it is too wet, dont worry, the kneading will make the dough absorb the water. If it is still too wet, add some flour. Keep kneading kneading kneading… until the dough becomes soft and elastic.
Let the dough rest in the bowl and cover it with a kitchentowel. Wait for it to double in size. This depends on the temperature. In hot climates it rises fast, but wait for at least an hour. The longer you wait, the better it is for digestion. You can also make the dough the evening before and leave it for the night. You will dream of a boat full of risen unbaked bread and the dough will smell a bit like alcohol in the morning (maybe the two are related?), but you will have a nice start in the morning, and a tasty bread!
Knead one last time, shortly. Or smash it on a hard surface, like Jasper likes to do.
Oil the Omnia or whatever you are using to put the bread in. Oil makes the crust nice and crispy. You can use a cheaper oil than olive oil. Put the dough in shape and wait for it to rise. This will take shorter than the first rise. If we are too hungry we skip this part and start baking. The bread will rise while baking, only not as much.
Bake on a low – middle heat temperature until the bread has a nice crust and sounds hollow when you knock on it.