French Style Country Bread
Ingredients
430 ml warm water
2 tablespoons of olive oil (for a softer loaf)
2 tsp salt
2 tsp sugar
600g Bread flour
3 tsp fast action yeast
Method
Put the water in a large bowl and add the salt, sugar and olive oil. Add flour followed by yeast and kneed with a dough hook in a mixer for 10 minutes. Cover and leave at warm room temperature for an hour until it doubles in size.
If the room is cold put the bowl in an oven at a very low temperature.
Use plenty of flour on hands and work surface. Empty the dough onto the surface and flatten. Fold the dough over on itself to form three layers. Repeat three times. Shape the dough as preferred - I have used disc and rugby ball shapes.
Put the dough in a pan on a non-stick surface, cover and leave to rise for an hour at warm room temperature.
Preheat the fan oven to 200 c.
Lightly slash the top of the loaf lengthwise with a very sharp small knife and sprinkle with flour then bake for 30 mins. Put the baked loaf on a rack to cool