Simple quick-bake loaf – Trude’s favourite!

Ideally you should double the quantities and make two loaves to make best use of the oven energy.

380 g plain flour
120 g wholegrain spelt flour
20 g semolina
½ cube yeast or a sachet of dried yeast
10 g salt or home-made herb salt
350 g lukewarm water

My current favourite ingredient: turmeric powder and coriander seed – it gives the loaf a special flavour and an interesting yellow colour.

Mix the dry ingredients together and then add the water. You can also pop a couple of teaspoons of coriander seed into the mortar, grind it finely and add in a teaspoon of turmeric, and then it all goes into the dough.

Knead until the dough is smooth, which takes about five minutes. If the dough’s sticky, add some more flour. But make sure it’s not too dry either…

Cover the dough and let it rest in a bowl for an hour, in a warm place with no draught.

Then knead it on a floured board to form a loaf. Put it on an oven tray with baking paper and make a few cuts around 1 cm in size.

Cover the loaf – for instance with a tea towel – and leave it for another one to one and a half hours to rise.

The finished bread

Photo (detail): © Granny Trude If you’re only baking one loaf, pre-heat the oven to 220 degrees upper/lower heat and use the middle shelf, for two loaves it’s better to use the fan setting (200 degrees). You bake the bread with steam. Create this by putting water on a hot oven tray when you put the loaf in the oven. Bake for around 25 minutes and cool on a cooling rack. Ready to eat!