Notes »

A few people that I follow on Mastodon –and previously on Twitter– bake bread, so one Sunday afternoon I tried it and I liked it. Since then I’ve been baking a batch of 4 “bocadillos” every Sunday.

Ingredients

• 550gr of strong white floor –I have tried different types, from different price ranges, but I would suggest the “basics” from the super-market is usually fine–
• 350ml of warm water (40secs on the microwave oven)
• 20gr of yeast
• 6gr of salt

Steps

0. Measure everything, reduce the amount of variables! Clean the kitchen counter thoroughly and wash your hands.
1. Get the warm water and put the yeast on it. Dissolve with a spoon and leave it for a couple of minutes.
2. Prepare a cooking pot large enough to let the dough rise double its size. Put half a tea spoon of sunflower or olive oil on it and spread it so the dough doesn’t stick to the pot.
3. Put the flour in a mixing bowl, make a hole in the centre and pour the water with the dissolved yeast. Also add the salt.
4. Mix a bit, put the mix on the kitchen counter you cleaned.
5. Knead for around 10 minutes, until the dough feels nice and flexible. If it is too sticky, add some flour to your hands.
6. Put the dough in the large pot and cover it with a clean cloth.
7. Let it rise for 2 hours, or until it doubles its size.

After the dough is ready:

1. Get the dough out of the pot and cut it in 4 identical pieces.
2. Make a flat-ish rectangle and roll it with your hands to shape the bread.
3. Make three diagonal cuts with a very sharp knife.
4. Put the dough in baking paper, in a tray that you can use to slide the baking paper with the dough into the oven.
5. Cover the dough with a clean cloth while the oven gets ready.
6. Pre-heat the oven to 250°C with a flat tray in the middle rack.
7. Add a metal pot with some boiling water in the bottom of the oven –this is to get nice crunchy crust–.
8. Slide the baking paper with the dough into the oven, on the flat tray.

Times

• Remove the pot with the water after 8 to 10 minutes –there’s no science about this, if you leave it too long, the crust may burn a little by the end of the process–.
• Let the bread bake for at most 20 minutes, but monitor the process because it is possible it will be ready a couple of minutes before that.
• Get the bread out and let it cool in a grid tray, if possible.

My experience is that by repeating these steps, you obtain consistently delicious bread, even if it doesn’t look always the same!