Fantastic Four-Flour Loaf
My standard go-to bread recipe. It’s rather good…
This is my go-to bread recipe, I’ve been making it for decades. It’s robust, flavoursome and totally delicious.
I started making bread pretty much as soon as I got my own kitchen. In the early days I did it all by hand, but eventually I succumbed and bought a machine, a Breville, branded Antony Worral-Thompsom, before he, well, before he did what he did.
When it eventually went pop I bought its direct replacement, but the program cycles were different and my recipe, which I had honed, didn’t fit. I got rid of the machine and did without for quite a while. But there is no doubt that a bread machine does the kneading better than I can, so I now have a Panasonic, but again, the cycles don’t fit my recipe, so it’s really just a glorified mixer. I use it to make the dough, then prove it and bake it manually in the oven. So it’s the best of both worlds, really.
A word of caution, you may have to tweak the quantities. I once moved house, just a couple of miles, and my recipe stopped working. Same flour, same yeast, everything was the same, except THE WATER! Yes really. Once I’d worked out what the problem was, I could put it right, but if your first loaf is disappointing, do not dispair, everything is fixable. But all flours are different and require different amounts of water. I’ll post some trouble-shooting tips at the end of this post.
The four different flours all contribute to this loaf. The rye gives it depth of flavour. The wholemeal and granary (malted flake) flours both add body and the granary also adds texture. The white flour keeps it all nice and light.
Ingredients
220ml tepid water
1 tsp salt
1 level tbsp sugar
A tiny pinch of Vitamin C (citric acid)
1 good knob of baking margarine, (about 30g, but I don’t actually measure it out)
350g flour, made up from:
70g dark rye
100g strong wholemeal
100g granary
80g strong white
1 tsp easy-bake dried yeast or 12g fresh yeast, crumbled
Directions
Put all the ingrdients in the pan (or bowl, if you are using a stand mixer fitted with a hook) IN THE ORDER STATED. It makes a difference. In particular it keeps the salt away from the yeast for as long as possible.
Bread machine - Set the Dough cycle. Mine lasts for 3hr 40m.
Stand mixer - Work the dough until it is smooth and elastic then cover with a damp tea-towel and leave in a warm place to rise, an hour or two depending on the conditions.
Grease a 2lb loaf tin.
When the dough is gloriously risen, sprinkle a little flour on your counter-top and knead the ball of dough until it is back to its original size. This as called “knocking back”. Form the dough into a smooth ball, making sure that there are no large air pockets in it. Shape it to fit the pan and return to the warm place to rise a second time. I check mine after 45m, but sometimes it takes an hour.
Ready for the oven
Pre-heat the oven to Fan 200C - See note
Bake for 25m or so until it looks good. Cool in the tin for 5m then turn it out - it may stick if you try to turn it out straight from the oven. It should sound hollow when you tap the underside, but if it doesn’t, get it back in that oven pronto for another few minutes.
Cool on a wire rack.
Straight out of the oven!
Notes
Obviously you can alter the proportions of the flour, but I find the above to be well-balanced. Rye flour gives it fantastic flavour, but it is lower in gluten than wheat flour, so it doesn’t rise as much. The white flour balances that out.
Here in the UK we have flour that is specially formulated for bread. It’s called Strong flour and it has a higher gluten level than plain (all-purpose) flour. Make sure that the flour you use is suitable for bread.
There are a number of things that can go wrong. The main problem for me was that my loaf would rise properly, but then collapse when baking and I would end of with a cratered brick. If this happens it means that the dough is not strong enough. Use less water or more flour. Better still, use a stronger flour. It needs to hold its form in the oven.
Oven temperature - I have a built-in NEFF oven with a bread function built in. It’s 220C with a fan. It’s hot. I usually drop it down 10 degrees or so, so that it doesn’t get too brown before it is baked through.
I also have a counter-top multioven. Everything gets cooked faster in it. I drop the temperature to Fan 190C. I also have to put the pan on the bottom rack position, otherwise the top of the loaf gets burned on the top elements. There’s not much space in there, which is why it is so efficient, of course. The loaf in the picture above was baked in that, at Fan 190C for 25minutes.
Margarine and citric acid - The margarine improves the loaf’s shelf-life. Without it, the loaf will go stale quicker. The citric acid helps the proving process. You need only the tiniest pinch, maybe 1/16th teaspoon.
Make sure that you have some top-quality butter to hand, this loaf deserves it. Enjoy!