Fantastic bread

Thursday night, I read this blog post from Lucy at Attic24 and knew that I had to have a go at this bread. I could almost smell the delicious aroma through the internet - we really need smelly-vision these days!

Yesterday morning, I copied down the recipe and had a batch of the dough in the airing cupboard by 8am.  It looked OK, nothing special, but it certainly wasn't a lot of work.

When we came home from gym last night, and had had our tea, I brought the mixture down and it did look a little gloopy, as Lucy warned that it would.  But I duly heated up my oven and my casserole dish, turned the gloop out onto a floured piece of greaseproof paper, and shaped it.  That, I think, is one of the key aspects of the ease of this dough - I shaped it - I didn't knock all the air out of it and knead it and then have to leave it to prove again.  I could see large bubbles of air in the dough, and there they stayed. By just very gently shaping the dough, all that air is captured and preserved.

I cooked it.  Wow.  It smelled lovely whilst we watched Silent Witness, and then it was tasting time!

It sliced up well and shows off those large air bubbles.  The slow rise seems to give it a special something.

Half the loaf disappeared in very short order as plates, knife and spread were brought in to facilitate munching for supper.  I suspect bread and jam were eagerly anticipated for breakfast this morning, and I have been told that I can certainly make that again!

And for a bread with just four ingredients, and hardly any hands-on time at all, I think I could manage to make this part of our repertoire.  You just have to think ahead with regards to the time needed in the airing cupboard!