Serves: Makes 2 large loaves
Approx cost: €1
Approx calories (per slice): ~75
Approx preparation and cooking time: 3 hours (mostly “unattended”)
[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #173B0B;”] H aving a food blog I feel like sometimes I’m really “putting myself out there” sometimes – I’m sure my fellow food bloggers will have similar feelings and experiences. Something you’ve cooked, which you may find delicious – you post about it and then you get an email pinging into your inbox. “A comment” you cry excitedly, oh pray, did my reader find this recipe as wonderful as I did? You open the email and your heart sinks: “Whoa, this recipe is horrible – complete failure, no taste, urgh!”. Ok, this has never happened to me – I’ve had one marginally negative comment but it wasn’t really bad to be honest. Still, I always feel a sense of responsibility – Of course I want people to try the things I post about. I love it when they do, and it’s truly an honour but at the same time it’s a stress that someone might be pitching their trust in me, their hopes and dreams for a dinner party, a hot date, and maybe, just maybe, I’ll let them down with something which ends up being inedible slop. Still, I try to only post about my successes – so hopefully all the things here can potentially be successful.
I’m really not one to toot my own horn (well, not publicly at least :D) but I’m just going to get this out of the way before I continue: this bread… is amazing. If you make this bread, and you don’t agree, then… well, I’m sorry, but you’re wrong. If you make this bread and it is anything less than completely out of this world then yes – it’s your fault. You did something wrong. Ok, of course I know that personal tastes are different but I’ve been fiddling around with bread and churning out “bad stuff” for so long now that I thought I would be destined to buying my bread forever. I can’t even remember the last time we bought bread in fact. Ok, of course – I don’t have the eons of experience that bakers have; I don’t have the special equipment and flours to make fancy breads but I’ve stumbled across what is, in my mind, the best bread ever. At least until I make a better one.
So – what’s so awesome about this bread? The inside is soft – soft, soft, soft, but not too soft. Because it’s 50% semolina flour it’s not overly squidgy and pappy. The semolina is also more coarse than regular flour which makes the bread easier to digest. It has a great crust and it makes awesome sandwiches and awesome toast. Additionally, and I don’t know why, or how, but it stays soft and fresh for ages. Don’t you hate it when you buy or make fresh bread and it’s stale after 2 days, or sometimes not even that? This is still soft and awesome for sandwiches after 4 days, maybe even 5. I didn’t (read: couldn’t) test it longer than that because someone ate it!
If you’re anything like me, when you see a recipe you think “Ooh, that would be awesome, but maybe I’ll add this, or remove that”. If you’re going to make this bread, and I urge you to make it, please – make it this way first. Follow the instructions to the letter because I’d love to see what other people think! Have a great Saturday 🙂
Ingredients
- 500g Plain white Flour
- 500g Fine ground Semolina Flour
- 2 tbsps Sunflower Oil (or similar)
- 1.5 tbsps dried, quick activating yeast
- 1.5 tbsps Granulated Sugar
- 1.5 tsps Salt
- 650 ml Warm water
Instructions
- Start off adding the yeast and sugar to a deep bowl. Add 100 ml of warm water and, using a small whisk or fork, mix thoroughly. The yeast may clump – try and break up the clumps as much as possible. Set the bowl aside in a warm place for 5 minutes. Mix again to ensure no lumps remain and then return to the warm place and leave for about 15 minutes. After this time you should have some well “activated” yeast.
- While the yeast is activating add the flours, the salt and the oil to a large mixing bowl. Mix well, and when the yeast is ready pour in the remaining 550 ml of warm water and the yeast mixture. Mix well with the flour and when you have something resembling a dough turn out onto a floured surface. You may need some additional flour or water if for some reason you find your dough too wet/dry. Knead the dough for a good 10 minutes – flattening out and folding over to incorporate as much air in as possible.
- Once this is done, return the dough to the mixing bowl. Cover with a clean cloth and place in a warm place for about 1 hour. After this time the dough should have at least doubled in size. Turn out once again onto a flour surface and knead for 10 minutes, as last time – incorporating as much air into the dough as possible.
- Divide the dough up into 2 or 3 equally sized pieces. I like to make a tin loaf and a “boule” style loaf. If using a tin, rub the inside of the tin with a little butter and then dust with flour to ensure the bread doesn’t stick later. Push half of the dough into an appropriately sized loaf tin – and I mean really push. Smash it down into all the corners by pressing hard on the centre. If you like, make it slightly higher at the corners than at the middle. It will rise, a lot, anyway, so this is fine. The other piece, knead it around a bit to make it pretty and make a kind of round-topped squat cylinder and place on a baking sheet. Don’t make it too “boule” shaped as it will spread and flatten later. Make some cuts on top of both loaves, about 1.5 cms deep. This has the advantage of not only looking pretty but also helping you fix any dodgy bits which might rise strangely later.
- Cover with the clean cloth again and allow to rise for about 1 hour again.About 30 minutes from the end of this process, start to pre-heat your oven to 220 degrees Celsius. Uncover the bread and carefully place into the hot oven (don’t poke the dough… it will sink!). You’ll see that if it’s been well kneaded it can rise (especially the tin) even more, so ensure there is space above the loaf in oven. Bake for about 25 minutes, until starting to turn a rich golden brown before removing from the oven.
- The temptation will be there to tuck in immediately – try to resist and allow it to cool for 20 minutes or so. Remove from the tin and place on a wire rack before enjoying! I place a loaf in the freezer when it’s cool – it freezes really well 🙂
semoilina would be great….I love the look of your bread ….I am scared of making my own bread…but maybe, will give a go with this recipe….
Thanks Shilpa – don't be scared… it sounds so weird, but making your own successful bread has to be one of the most satisfying things I can think of. I guess because man has been baking bread for hundreds of years… there's something very "primal" about making it 😀
Oh, this post made me smile. Yes, I can completely relate to the whole blogging self-consciousness and finding a comfort level amidst it all. This bread does look pretty terrific and I can only imagine how good it tastes (which, for me, is part of the problem). I will be honest in saying that I rarely make breads from refined grains partly because they do taste so good and I would never be able to stop!! But since I have my family comfortably working from fibre rich whole grains, I prefer to keep moving in that direction and resist the more addictive, though arguably better tasting, delights. Have a great weekend Charles!
Hi Kelly – I completely agree – I'm going to stop making this one for a while. I can't stop eating it :/ I think my bread consumption has increased 3-fold since I started making these loaves. I'll switch over to something healthier for a bit I think – maybe all-bran cereal 😀
Charles, from what you say this bread sounds like a miracle indeed and the loaves look so neat! (your long experience is well visible). Especially the 4 days freshness! It's like a whole-grain, sourdough bread! I have never tried baking my own (apart from sweet gingerbread or challah etc..) because even without it I eat too much bread and baguettes 😉 Great choice of the recipe for Sunday!
Talking about responsibility… Whenever someone says my recipe gave good results, it's like a huge surprise because I often don't measure ingredients and only do this when I want to post a recipe. This way I'm a bit more disciplined too, which is a good thing in cooking. Not to mention the problems I have with certain explanations or instructions in English…
I'm often very worried that people will be unable to follow my recipes mainly due to the fact that they're all in grams. It can rule out a large percentage of people I think, but when I finally get around to working on that little tool of mine again then maybe I can resolve that problem 😀 Thanks for the kind comments – you should quit buying bread for a week and make this instead! I don't think you'll regret it! 🙂
It looks so so cool! I love the smell of just baked bread, but I am not really a bread person. Since i can't bake I made myself give up most of the baked stuff hehe )))
lol – fresh baked bread smells so amazing. That, and tomato vines. If someone could bottle those smells I'd pay a fortune for them!
Heh I googled it and looks like Yankee candle has a home fragrance with the scent of baked bread ) You should try it! )
I love using semolina in bread, just gives it such a wonderful texture. And this looks wonderful.
Hi Greg – it really makes the texture great – and much easier on the stomach. Large amounts of plain white bread can be quite indigestible sometimes. I guess this is the human equivalent of how chickens eat grit and small stones to help them grind the grains in their stomachs 😀
Wonderfully made, the bread looks awesome with a very beautiful texture. Regarding your comment on Eno – It is a combination of baking soda & citric acid.
Ah, thanks Sadhana. I'd never heard of Eno before… nice to learn a new thing! 🙂 You should try the bread when you have some spare time too 😀
I'm assuming you posted about your fresh bread because I've been taunting you with the blueberries. 😉 LOL. I have such a weakness for fresh bread. These loaves rock! They look so good. One of these days I'll get a loaf to work. I do have a bunch of semolina in the pantry…I may give this one a go next weekend. First I need to try and tackle another sourdough. 🙂
Hi Kristy! Make sure your semolina isn't too coarse. I guess it will still work although the consistency might be a bit different. My wife recently found a recipe for a no-knead refrigerator bread which looks wonderful. Fake-edit: here's the link – doesn't it look awesome?!
Beautiful bread Charles. I've not heard about using semolina in bread. I'm curious as to what the 'dodgy bits' look like!
Thanks Eva. By "dodgy bits" I mainly meant just correcting the shape. The "boule" loaf above isn't the best example since it's still a bit mis-shapen, but you know when you have cut a ball of dough into half and you have one flat edge… trying to form that into a neat ball can be difficult and sometimes results in creases. This way you can just cut through the crease and turn it into a "feature" as opposed to an "unfortunate mistake" 😀
Ahh. That makes sense. JT makes a 'no kneed' bread in my smallest Le Creuset casserole pan…it turns out very boule-ish! This recipe has the crustiest crumb…it really is a great bread with little effort!
http://kitcheninspirations.wordpress.com/2009/01/…
Ah, thanks for the link – I'll give it a try soon! 🙂
Lovely bread post. I always slash my loaves after rising not before. But those deep slashes look so impressive, I'll have to try your way. Last time I baked break (as opposed to making pizza dough) I made an epi and a regular baguette style with the 1 1/2 pound of dough. The epi impressed my company, which was the point of the exercise. 🙂
"Last time I baked break "
Of course, I meant, to write … baked BREAD! 🙂
Ooops, thought I'd replied to this. You know – I'm in two minds about when to slash the bread. I watched a show about a famous french baker who was making hundreds of sour-dough loaves. He was a real artisan baker and his bread was revered in the restaurant business. He slashed his loaves after rising to prevent them from "popping" in the oven, but I noticed that if I try to do that myself the loaf collapses when you break the surface (which seems to render the 1 hour you spent raising it rather pointless). I guess ultimately it doesn't matter too much as long as the taste is good, right? 😀
I haven’t bake a loaf of bread in ages and when I finally did make bread, neither of the 2 kinds I made were in a loaf form so I couldn’t test out whether to slash before or after the rise. I’ll give it a shot next time with my Sundried Tomato and Basil version. 🙂
truly amazing – love the process in pictures and I can well believe it lives up to its name 🙂
cheers, priya
Thank you Priya! It's been some time since I made a different bread to this one (it's so popular in my house now) – I tried last night and was disappointed compared to this one. I think I'll be staying with this for a long time!
Wow, Charles, I don't even need you to tell me that this bread is delicious because the photos say it all! Look at that golden perfection. I can't even imagine how great a slice tasted right out of the oven…maybe slathered with some butter or jam. Mmm!
Thanks Caroline – You know what the best thing about eating bread straight from the oven? The fact that all the butter melts in so you're of course "obliged" to add more 😀
Honestly, those people who send you emails like that are weird to me lol. As a person, you know you may not enjoy everything a person makes. And if you decide to try it, and you don't like it.. don't email that person back and blame them. YOU decided to make it and it didn't go your way. Not a huge freaking deal. I'm sorry I had to rant on your blog now lol. You know I;m not a huge bread eater but this really looks good 🙂
Thanks Kay 😀 You know, sometimes I wonder if I ever had to choose to give up bread or potatoes, which would I choose… It would be a tough choice, I tell you!
This looks like amazing bread. And I love how long it stays fresh! I hate when I make something and it goes stale so quickly! I've been meaning to try to make bread more, so maybe I would enjoy sandwiches more or have toast more often. I'll have to try this one!
And it's always super exciting to get emails with comments 🙂 I haven't been around long enough to get negative comments, or to have people try much of my stuff either though. 😛 Keep up your great posts!!
Thanks Stefanie – I hope you get a chance to try this, I really do. I'm always eager to know what people think, especially on recipes which I think are greatly successful! It really makes wonderful sandwiches too 😀
Whew, I thought I was the only one worried about my blogs content and perfection!! I too feel that there are dishes that my family and I love but maybe not right for others, afterall I had started mine for my daughter and to my very happy surprise found its way to so many new friends!! Now this bread has caught my attention. The texture looks awesome and as I read through the recipe I could even imagine the aroma in your kitchen. I have some semolina flour on hand and definitely have to give this a try.
Thanks Linda – I love your blog and your biscotti addiction so you don't need to worry! I have a great number of recipes which are favourites amongst my wife and I but I always wonder if other people would actually like them or just think they're "weird"… Maybe I should post one one day and find out!
wow with a post title like that, how could I not click to read more! the bread does sound real good!
Thanks Shuhan! I really recommend trying it! Let me know what you think if you're able to 🙂
Thanks for the reminder of this one. I'm going to make it this weekend. We need some fresh bread around here and I've taken a good long break from yeast for a while. Thanks Charles! 🙂
Finally got around to making this today. It's delicious! We had it with some dipping oils and cheese for dinner. Mmmmm!!!! It was a hit all around. And Charles you have restored my faith in bread making. The bread rose!!!! Finally, a loaf that I can make. Actually it made two loaves. One in a tin and the other boule style. I split the boule in half and froze the halves. 🙂 Thanks!
Ah, I'm so pleased! If you keep it in a tub it should keep fresh-ish for about 5 days or so. I always find that when making bread with pure white flour alone it gets SO dry after just a day… insane. I guess the semolina really locks in the moisture. I made a double quantity of the bread on the weekend. I made 6 loves in total – all in the same shape. Split each load into 3 and pushed them out to a rough sausage shape. Cut the tops, proved and then baked. I only have 1 loaf tin so I needed to adapt a new method 😀
So happy you liked it all around. Apart from a baguette the other day I still haven't bought bread since creating this. I spend an hour making a load each Sunday or Saturday. Really satisfying to have it in the house all the time!
ooohhhh….I can't wait to try this. As Barney Stinson, from the fabulous show "How I Met Your Mother," would say…Challenge accepted 😉 LOL. Seriously though…the bread looks awesome. I just tried Jame's Beard's French-style bread recipe this past week and it turned out awesome. Chewy crumb, buttery crust. you get the idea.
~M
Hi Melissa – I have such a weakness for bread… don't think I could live without the stuff. I hope you're able to give this a try. I can't find a decent source of the semolina I need for this at the moment so I'm out of luck alas 🙁
Texture looks excellent in this loaf! I might give this a go with the marmalade 🙂 I make a Finnish egg bread that is braided, quite lovely with jam or butter.
Thanks Heather – this bread is easily the best one I’ve ever made. The semolina inside keeps it fresh for days… It was still soft and delicious after 4 or 5 days so it’s definitely the one I make most regularly nowadays 🙂
Charles, beautiful bread! I’ve been baking all kinds of bread since I was just a girl, so I can tell just by looking at your recipe that it is very good. I like how you urged readers to make it according to your instructions the first time. I don’t know how many times I’ve read reviews of recipes on sites like Epicurious by people who say things like: “This recipe is terrible. I made it exactly as written except I doubled it and used this ingredient instead of that, and it was the worst [fill in the blank] ever.” One must *know* the rules before one can break them, I always say!
Thanks so much Jean, would you believe it, I’m having the hardest time recreating this bread recently… I think the semoline I bought was ground to a different grade. It’s still very fine but it seems that the bread is always a lot more dense. Must try and get some of that holy grail semolina flour I had last year!
THANK YOU Charles! What a lovely recipe!! Bookmarking it. This looks so fresh….and soft. My semolina bags won’t go to waste after all!
Thanks so much Minnie – don’t forget to make sure the semolina is very finely ground!
Hi Charles,
This bread looks divine! I will give it a go for sure for my family as I can’t have white flour or semolina. Would you happen to know of a recipe involving wholemeal flour and oatmeal flour which is soft, won’t crumble and will rise, without all the fancy ingredients like gluten flour?
Hi Nidsy – thanks so much for your comment. I do hope you give it a try… make sure you get very fine semolina… if you use coarse stuff it will pull the dough down and make it not rise so well. You can always give it a good blitz in a food processor if you can’t find the fine stuff I guess. As for wholemeal and oatmeal and things like this… can you eat granary bread, or is gluten out for you entirely? I posted a granary bread recipe a while back, but to be honest I don’t think I’ve ever tried making a gluten free bread. I made some gluten-free tortilla breads, using quinoa flour, but no big loaves before – sorry! That’s something to try though. I have a whole load of flours at home here so I should get experimenting maybe 😀