Bread Making

I love to make bread either by myself or with the little ones, there is something very relaxing and enjoyable about the whole process, especially the yummy bread at the end. Having been chatting with a few people who said they would like to make bread but wouldn't know where to start, I thought I would attempt to put together a bread making tutorial, I hope it's helpful. This is my basic, quick bread rolls and makes 8 rolls.

Ingredients

500g strong flour

10ml (2tsp) sugar

2.5ml (1/2tsp)salt

5ml (1tsp) yeast

260ml water

30ml (2tbsp) olive oil

Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl.

 Add the water and oil, I just use water straight out the tap, you don't need to worry about it being warm enough or too warm, the bread will rise.

Mix 

and turn out onto a clean worktop, yes it can look rather crumbly at this stage but don't worry it will all come together ok.

Knead well, takes about 10 minutes

It should something like this and when you gently press you finger into it, it should feel spring/spongy!

It could now be shaped into one loaf but we love rolls, so I divide it in half, then half again repeating

until I have 8 pieces of dough, now in the past we have shaped rolls into, rabbits, hedgehogs, teddy bear faces and dinosaurs as well as basic roll shapes

Arrange them on your baking tray and cover, I use a clean tea towel, now leave them to rise, now this depends on many factors so could take anywhere from 45 minutes to a couple of hours, so don't panic if you peek at an hour and they still look very small, they will rise eventually.

After they have risen.

 When they have roughly doubled in size, bake at Gas Mark 7 for 10 minutes, then turn down temperature and cook for a further 10 minutes at Gas Mark 4, if you tap the bottom of the rolls or loaf it should sound hollow.

Forgot to take a photo as they came out of the oven but remembered  just in time before they were all eaten.