Three achievable bread recipes to make you feel like a pro 

With the looming possibility of months of self-isolation ahead, many of us are turning our hand to that very primal desire to make our own bread. GQ asked some of the country’s best pastry chefs and independent bakeries for inside tips, advice and recipes our readers can follow at home – the perfect lockdown DIY activity with quick, delicious results.

The smell of freshly baked bread wafting from the oven in the morning is about as hackneyed as it gets when you picture a scene of domestic bliss. A white farmhouse loaf still warm from the oven, spongy focaccia with rosemary and lashings of olive oil… It’s making me salivate just thinking about it. While the reality right now may be many of us feeling ready to throttle our nearest and dearest after a few days of being trapped indoors together, there’s not much that lifts the mood like the success of a perfectly risen loaf.

Much like mastering backgammon or learning a new language, there’s never been a better time to improve your bread-making repertoire. To that end, GQ have got the lowdown on three simple recipes we can all make at home…

Ballymaloe Irish soda bread

A great recipe to start with, soda bread only takes 2 or 3 minutes to make by hand, and 20 to 30 minutes to bake. Darina Allen, who runs Ballymaloe Cookery School in Ireland, shares her master recipe with GQ. “This is one of my great convertibles,” she tells us. “We’ve had the greatest fun experimenting with different variations and uses – the possibilities are endless.” Adding a couple of teaspoons of caraway seeds and a tablespoon of sugar is a popular Irish variation, which Allen says is perfect for afternoon tea. Her much-used Forgotten Skills Of Cooking on my bookshelf informs me it’s also great with olives, sun-dried tomatoes and whatever herbs you can find. If you don’t have buttermilk, pastry chef Henrietta Inman suggests mixing approximately 400g natural yoghurt with 200g milk instead. Buttermilk varies in texture, so you may need to add slightly more or less.
Ballymalow Cooker School. cookingisfun.ie

Ingredients (makes 1 loaf)

450g plain white flour
1 level teaspoon salt
1 level teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
600ml buttermilk or sour milk

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 230C.
2. Sieve the dry ingredients into a bowl. Make a well in the centre. Pour in all of the milk at once.
3. Using 1 hand, with your fingers stiff and outstretched like a claw, stir in a full circular movement from the centre to the outside of the bowl in ever-increasing circles. The dough should be softish, not too wet and sticky. When it all comes together, turn it out onto a well-floured work surface. Wash and dry your hands.
4. Tidy it up and flip over gently. Pat the dough into a round loaf about 4cm deep. Cut a deep cross on the loaf and prick in the four corners.
5. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes, then turn down to 200C for 30 minutes until cooked. If you are in doubt, tap the bottom of the bread: when it is cooked it will sound hollow. Cool on a wire rack.

Note: soda breads are best eaten on the day they are made, but are still good for a day or so after.

Bread Ahead rosemary focaccia

London’s now-famous Bread Ahead Bakery School started with a little stall in Borough Market in 2013 and has taken artisan baking to the next level. Founder Matthew Jones believes, “A desire for comfort and nostalgia is causing a surge in bread-making during this difficult time.” While the school is closed, he and his team of merry bakers have launched daily home baking lessons, teaching everything from ciabatta to chocolate brioche, streamed live via Instagram at 2pm. Matthew says: “Necessity is the mother of all inventions and the necessity to keep busy while creating something wonderful is what is bringing people back to baking.”

This beautiful Italian focaccia recipe is a Bread Ahead classic, enriched with olive oil and topped with whatever you find in the fridge or larder. Home chef and farmer Julius Roberts, who documents his culinary adventures on Instagram @telltalefood, suggests a beetroot, goat’s cheese and walnut topping. Meanwhile chef Claire Ptak, founder of Violet in East London, is using this time in quarantine to perfect a Ligurian take on focaccia, inspired by Salt Fat Acid Heat. 
Bread Ahead Bakery School. breadahead.com 

Ingredients

500g strong white bread flour
10g salt
6g fresh yeast (or 3g instant/quick/fast-acting dried yeast)
400g cold water
80g olive oil for folding and topping
Sea salt flakes
A sprig of rosemary, or whatever seasonal herbs and toppings you like

Method

1. Place the flour and salt in a bowl and combine. In another bowl, add the yeast to the water, then mix until dissolved (if using instant dried yeast, mix the yeast through the dry mixture instead).
2. Make a well in the centre of the flour and pour in the water and yeast. Bring the mixture together to form a loose dough.
3. Tip the dough onto your work surface, ensuring you scrape all of the dough out to leave a clean bowl. With the heel of your hand, push the dough into the table and stretch and tear for 5 minutes, making sure you scrape your dough to the centre throughout the mix.
4. Pour ¾ of the oil into the bottom of your bowl and place the dough back in the bowl. Spread the oil from the bowl over the top of the dough, then give your dough a fold. To do so, place your hands under one side of the dough, pull it up and stretch over to the other side. Do this from the bottom, the top and each of the two sides (this is considered a single fold). This will help to merge the oil with the dough.
5. Leave to rest for half an hour. Give your dough 3 more folds, resting for 30 minutes each time. After the final fold, move to the fridge and leave for 10 minutes. Preheat your oven to 220C/fan 230C/gas mark 7 or as hot as your oven will go.
6. Gently slide your dough onto a lightly oiled tray, fold in half (like a giant Cornish pasty) and massage the rest of the oil into the surface of the dough making sure it is evenly covered. Press your fingers into the top of the dough to make that dimpled appearance, spread out into the tray and leave to rise for a final 30 minutes. If you choose, you can now hold your focaccia for up to 6 hours in the fridge.
7. Sprinkle with salt and your desired topping, then place your tray in the oven and lightly spritz the oven chamber with a water spray to keep it moist.
8. Bake for 15 minutes. Take out, glaze with olive oil, cool and serve.

E5 Bakehouse Wild Hackney sourdough

Once you’ve mastered a simple non-fermented loaf, it’s time to tackle the holy grail of breadmaking: sourdough. Ben MacKinnon, who started E5 Bakehouse in a railway arch in East London almost ten years ago, say the secret to their bread is “a great deal of respect and care for our ‘leaven’ – the life of the sourdough”. For Ben and head baker Eyal Schwartz sourdough is a way of life, baked daily at sunrise with their own stone-milled, organic flours. It doesn’t have to be such a labour of love, though, and they’re quick to remind us that you need nothing but flour, water and a pinch of salt to get going.

Chef and author Olia Hercules tells GQ readers, “It’s actually much harder than people think to kill the sourdough starter, especially if you keep it in the fridge. Don’t panic if there is a little bit of liquid in it, just tip it out. You can easily bring it back by feeding it. A starter is definitely dead if it’s pinkish and smells rank, but it takes months of neglect to get to that stage.”

Ingredients

Sourdough starter (see below)
450g flour (we use a mix of rye and our stoneground heritage wheat flour)
10g sea salt

The sourdough starter

1. To make a sourdough starter, mix 50g flour with 50ml water to make a runny batter. Leave covered in a small jar for 24 hours.
2. The next day, remove about 80 per cent of the mixture and discard. To feed the starter, add another tablespoon of flour and tablespoon of water to the remaining 20 per cent and mix well. Keep covered in a small bowl at room temperature for another 24 hours.
3. Repeat this process for at least 5 days, trying to feed your starter at roughly the same time each day. By this stage, you should have a bubbling batter full of wild yeast and lactic bacteria. When you want to make a sourdough loaf, the first thing is to make a leaven.

The leaven

1. The night before you want to make your sourdough loaf, mix 15g of starter mixture with 75g flour and 75g warm water. This will be your leaven. Leave at room temperature for about 10 hours.

The dough

1. Mix 100g of your leaven with 300g warm water, 450g flour and 10g sea salt in a large bowl and cover. Every 45 minutes, stretch and fold the dough to develop glutinous strength and dough tension. After about 3.5 hours from the initial mixing time, your dough should feel nice and pillowy.
2. Shape your dough into a round and place it with the seam side up in a floured proving basket, or in a bowl lined with a floured tea towel. Prove for 30 minutes at room temperature and, if you wish, a further 6-18 hours in your fridge to slow down the process and develop more complex flavours in your bread.
3. The leftover leaven can now be kept in a jar in the fridge and used as the starter for your next bread-making session. Try to make bread once per week, this way the starter will be regular refreshed.
4. When ready to bake, set the oven to 230C. Once hot, turn the dough out of the basket into a pre-heated pan (ideally a Dutch oven or round casserole dish) and score the bread. Bake for 20 minutes with the lid on to steam, then a final 20 minutes with no steam.
5. Cool on a wire rack and enjoy for up to a week or give to friends and neighbours.

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