Here is my bread-making recipe. When we say everything is homemade, we mean everything, including our bread. With both white and wholegrain bread made daily, there is nothing nicer than eating breakfast, lunch, or dinner with fresh-baked bread and rolls.
The recipe for both is just about the same but with the replacement of wholemeal flour and mixed bread grains for the wholemeal bread. *For a denser wholemeal add more wholemeal flour and less white flour. I make one and a half loaves from each mix to have nice, big loaves. The third loaf, which is half white and half wholemeal, I freeze for Selwyn and me to eat so we always have bread available. It freezes very well so also works for last-minute bookings in our quiet times.
What I learned in my journey to breadmaking, and others may have known this all along, but warm water is best between 43 -48 degrees celsius. I had a few fails until I got the water temperature correct and generally use 45-46 degrees celsius for perfect bread. Most recipes just call for “warm water”, so it was trial and error till I found what worked for me. I use my **Kenwood chef to knead the dough but you can do this by hand. I used to do it by hand but by making 3 loaves a day, I decided that I needed to save time and energy for other tasks.
Recipe
Ingredients:
- 2 cups of warm water (43-48 degrees C)
- 3 tablespoons of sugar (brown or white)
- 1 tablespoon of yeast
- 1 free-range egg (in our case, fresh from our girls)
- half a lemon juiced (from our tree)
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 teaspoons salt
- *6 cups of white flour or 1.5 cups wholemeal flour, 4 cups white, and half a cup of mixed bread grains. Add a bit more flour if required to get a nice consistency that isn’t too sticky. Add more wholemeal flour and less white if you want a darker, denser loaf.
Method:
- Place warm water and sugar in a bowl and stir till the sugar is dissolved. Use a non-reactive bowl such as glass or stainless steel
- Add yeast
- Leave for 10 minutes
- Add egg, lemon juice, olive oil, and salt and stir to combine
- Add 2 cups of flour and stir in well. Add additional 4 cups and **knead for 10 minutes
- Once well kneaded, take the dough out of the bowl and throw it onto a lightly floured table. Knead for another minute or two
- Place in a clean, oiled bowl and cover with a tea towel
- Let it rise for 60 minutes
- Then punch it down in the middle
- Leave it another 60 minutes for the second rise
- Remove from bowl and cut to desired size and place into oiled bread loaf pans
- Leave for 30 minutes to prove in the loaf pans
- Bake for 35 minutes or until golden on top
- Leave in the pan for 5 minutes to cool before tipping out onto a cool rack.
- Leave till completely cooled.
- Slice as required
All that’s left to do is enjoy. Our bread is especially good in whitebait season with our Waimea Creek caught whitebait patties. The bread is also delicio0us with our homegrown, homemade jams and marmalade.
All that’s left to do, is book your stay.
Can we get the wheat version, it was amazing!
Hi Patty,
Thanks for your question and I’m glad you enjoyed our bread. For the wheat version, I use 2 cups of wholemeal flour, 1/2 cup of grain mix, and 2.5 cups of all-purpose white flour. The bread grain mix I’m using is rolled oats, linseed, kibbled wheat, soy, flaked malt wheat, wheat bran, sunflower seeds and kibbled rye. You can use any bread grain mix available. Happy baking!
Cheers
Elizabeth