Basic White Bread

Ingredients

30g Unsalted Butter
150ml Warm Water (warm, not hot)
150ml Milk (warm, not hot)
7g Instant Yeast (approx 2.5 teaspoons)
500g Strong White Bread Flour
1 teaspoon Salt
Oil (for kneading)

Directions

1.	Warm the milk, butter and water in a pan, or add hot water from the kettle onto butter, and once melted add the cold milk. The milk/water mixture should be warm, not hot, about body temperature.
2.	Pour the liquid into a large mixing bowl and throw in the yeast. Leave for 10 minutes to allow the yeast to activate and bloom.
3.	Dump the flour into the yeast mixture, along with the salt, and stir together until you have a sticky mess.
4.	On a clean work surface, pour a little oil and spread over a 30cm area. The oil will prevent your bread from sticking to the work surface without adding additional flour which will cause your bread to be tough. The addition of the oil will also soften the bread.
5.	Knead the dough until it becomes less sticky, just slightly tacky. It should be smooth and elastic. It can take about 15-20 minutes or more, so take out all those frustrations on your dough. You can tell when it is done if you give it a firm poke, and the indentation fills back in fairly quickly.
6.	Place the dough back into a lightly oiled bowl, and cover with a clean tea towel to proof/rise. Leave at room temperature for about 1-2 hours, until it has at least doubled in size. Alternatively, this can be done overnight in the fridge. Cover the bowl in cling film and leave for 12 hours.
7.	Turn the dough out onto a clean lightly floured surface. Punch the dough to knock out any air and knead again for 2 minutes.
8.	With floured hands, shape the dough into a round ball and place on a buttered and floured baking tray (rub the tray with a little butter, then dredge a little flour over before tapping and tipping the tray until the grease is covered in flour). Dust the top of the bread, and slash a cross on the top with a sharp knife.
9.	Alternatively, split the dough into two, and place in buttered and floured loaf tins. Dust with flour and slash once down the middle.
10.	Cover with a tea towel again, and allow to double in size once again. Meanwhile, place a roasting tin at the bottom of your oven, and pre-heat to Gas Mark 7 / 425°C / 220°F
11.	Place bread in the centre of oven then pour half pint of water in the roasting tin before closing the door. The hot roasting pan will cause it to steam the bread. Bake at Gas Mark 7 / 425°C / 220°F for 35-45 minutes, or less if split into two loaves.
12.	If baked in tins, turn the loaves upside down and return back to the oven for 5 minutes to crisp up the bottom and sides.
13.	Allow to cool on a rack

Note

The flavour of bread develops during the proofing as the yeast does its thing. Here's the way it works. When you mix the yeast, water and flour (plus any other ingredients) together you start a series of chemical and yeast/bacterial reactions that will speed up, slow down or stop according to the temperature. These changes will leaven the dough develop the flavour, the starch and protein to break down and soften, and the natural sugars (called maltose) to get used up, to the point where the dough falls apart.

At room temperature this happens relatively quickly. But in the refrigerator, at say 4°C, this break down takes a long time to happen. The lengthened fermentation increases the "friendly" bacteria Lactobacillus and develops a deeper flavour.

Basic White Bread