Healthy Homemade Bread using a KitchenAid Mixer

There's nothing better than a loaf of home made bread. The satisfaction that comes from successfully producing a well risen loaf that tastes fantastic really is a great feeling. As you can tell I like making bread and have been trying to perfect my bread making technique for the past couple of years.

OK so how do you make the perfect loaf of bread? Well it totally depends on what sort of bread variety you like. Some of us enjoy a crusty white loaf, others prefer a wholemeal multi-grain loaf, but me, I love rye breads. I think rye bread has so much more flavour than many other breads and when I cook food I always concentrate on flavour than any other factor, after all surely cooking is all about taste right? Rye bread is delicious toasted which I eat at breakfast every morning with a large pot of fresh coffee. I have been experimenting with a few different rye bread recipes and I use this base recipe to make the dough:

• 400g Strong White Bread Flour
• 100g Rye Flour
• 7g Fast Action Yeast, or 15g Dried Yeast (Fresh yeast is best but its very difficult to find, but if you can use 10g)
• 10g Salt (Preferably a good quality sea salt)
• 1tsp Caraway Seeds
• 350ml Luke Warm Water

1. Using a large mixing bowl, add the two flours and caraway seeds, give it a good mix.
2. If using fast action dried yeast add 7g to a jug of lukewarm water, mix thoroughly until dissolved and leave for ten minutes until foam starts forming on the top.
3. If using dried active yeast follow step 2 above, but make sure you dissolve a teaspoon of sugar into the water before adding the yeast, however always follow the instructions on the packet for dried yeast as instructions can vary depending on the brand and then you cant blame me if it doesn't turn out right ;-)
4. When the yeast has formed a layer of foam or what looks like a layer of milk on the top, add the salt into the jug and dissolve into the mixture and give it all a good final stir scraping from the bottom.
5. Add the jug of yeast mixture into the flour, mix well then knead for 10 minutes.
6. When kneading make sure you lift and stretch the dough to add air into the mixture, or use a food mixer if you are lucky enough to have one, I have a Kitchen Aid mixer which does a great job of mixing the dough and saves your hands from getting covered in it. If using a food mixer, mix for 1 minute on minimum then for 4 minutes on speed 2, or about one quarter of maximum power on other mixers.
7. Place the dough back into the mixing bowl, or if using the food mixer leave it in the mixing bowl, then cover the top with cling film or a damp tea towel.
8. Leave dough to rise for 1 hour in a warm place.
9. Once dough has risen, take it out and place into a greased loaf tin. Leave to rise again for another hour.
10. Preheat oven to 250 degrees C, then just before putting the loaf into the oven, spray water into the oven using a mist spray, or throw in a few ice cubes into a baking tray at the bottom of the oven, this is a great tip to make the bread moist.
11. As soon as the dough is in the oven, reduce temperature to 220 degrees C and cook for 30 minutes.
12. Take the loaf out of the oven, remove from the tin and leave to cool on a wire rack. I always find if you resist the temptation to cut into the loaf when its still hot, it is better to leave to cool completely before eating. The loaf still cooks for a little bit when taken out of the oven and slicing into it immediately seems to stop this final cooking stage, but hey that's just what I think.

There you go, my favourite bread recipe that makes the most amazing toast for breakfast.