This is the easiest bread you will ever make. Each step below is ridiculously simple. If you’ve avoided bread before because it’s a pain, try this – it really is magic!
Magic Bread
Equipment
- Cast iron pot (if you don’t have one, use two metal trays. One for the dough and one with hot water on another shelf to create a steam oven)
Ingredients
In your kitchen
- 375 ml hot water from the tap (warm, but not boiling)
In your Hey Baker box
- 3 cups baker's flour (it'll work with plain flour, but baker's flour is better)
- 2 tsp salt
- 2 tsp instant yeast (instant yeast is different to dried yeast – make sure you get the right one!)
Instructions
- Set aside a tablespoon of the flour for later. Put the remaining flour, salt, yeast and water into a large bowl. Mix with a spoon handle until it turns into a sticky dough.
- Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and put in a warm spot (like a sunny window) for around 2 hours to rise. You want it to double in size, which may take a little less or more time. It should be bubbly on top and quite wobbly.
- While the dough is rising, preheat your oven and a large oven-safe cast-iron pot to 230°C (220°C fan forced).
- Sprinkle half the flour you set aside on a clean bench and scoop the dough out. Sprinkle the rest of the flour on top. Fold the edges in to make a round ball. Flip it over onto baking paper.
- Take your heated pot out of the oven (carefully!) and lower the dough in on the baking paper. Bake for 30 minutes with the lid on, then remove the lid to brown for ~15 minutes.No pot? Put the dough on a heated tray with a second tray of water below.
- Cool on a rack for at least 10 minutes, then eat!