Home Baked Bread Recipe

We make our own bread most days. It is easy, it doesn't take very long and has chopped our bread bill down by a quarter.

You can buy 25 kilo bags of organic wholemeal flour for around $45. This works out to be $1.35 per loaf. We pay up to $5 per loaf for organic bread in the shops. So it is definitely worthwhile.
Spelt costs about $75 per 25 kilo bag, so again it is still worth baking your own.

People are always so impressed when you mention that you bake your own bread (So I'm always mentioning it). Here is a easy bread making recipe that will make your friends and neighbours think you are the ultimate earth mother (or father) :

3 cups of organic wholemeal or stone ground or spelt or rye flour
(for a fail-safe recipe use 50% plain flour and 50% wholemeal)
1.5 cups of warm-hot-ish water'
4 teaspoons of yeast
1 Teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
You can substitute .5 of a cup of water for yogurt, which is what I do.

Mix the yeast into one cup of warm to hot-ish water. Let it sit for maybe two minutes, it will froth a little which just shows the yeast is active.

Mix all the ingredients in together, holding back .5 of a cup of water which you will mix in as needed.

Kneed the mixture into a firm dough. It should not be too dry of too wet. If it is sticky it is too wet and if it is crumbly it is too dry.

Don't kneed too much. Roll the dough into a ball and leave to sit, covered, for about an hour.

After an hour the dough will have risen. Grease an oblong baking dish and stretch the dough-ball longways to fit into the baking dish. Leave for another 15 minutes to recover its spring, then bake on 160 degrees Celsius for 20-30 minutes in an oven.

Remove when golden brown.

For a soft loaf, wrap in a towel or cloth nappy (preferably clean) this stops the moisture escaping as steam. For a crunchy loaf leave to cool in the open.

Yummmmmmmmm!