One-Step Breads

If you want to try baking bread for the first time or you’re short on time for bread baking, these recipes will give you a great loaf with a minimum of time and effort. I’ve provided instructions for machine mixing, but you’ll find the methods for mixing by hand in Chapter 2. The one-step or straight dough method refers to the fact that all the ingredients are mixed to a dough in a fast continuous process, rather than using a pre-ferment or starter that needs to be made in advance. For ease and convenience in baking, all these breads are baked on a flat baking sheet and don’t need to be slid onto a heated baking sheet or baking stone already in the oven. Spraying the loaves with water before and during the first few minutes of baking is an important step. Though it won’t necessarily make a very crisp crust (the fairly dense crumb of these loaves retains too much water after baking to allow that), it does help the loaves to rise evenly and to their full potential by preventing the crust from hardening before the dough is fully risen. There’s an old bread baker’s trick to getting a crisp crust without using a steam-injection oven: After the bread is baked and cooled, pop it back into a preheated 180°C/gas mark 4 oven for 3-4 minutes and then cool on a rack again - this is best done close to the time you want to serve the bread.