Granary Bread Recipe

This recipe comes from my godmother Mary, who is a phenomenal cook. Going to her house is amazing – she measures her cookbooks by the yard (and apparently they’ve all been left to me in her will!), and she’s a brilliant source of cooking tips and interesting new flavour combinations. But it’s the basics that come in handy most often, and this is a fool-proof bread recipe. While I’m not going to lie and say it’s cheaper to bake your own (particularly when you take energy costs into account), nevertheless it’s an incredibly satisfying thing to do, and you can be sure the result is healthy, tasty and fresh, unlike the horrible cheap bread you can get in the supermarket. I definitely recommend giving this a go, especially if you need stress releif – the combination of kneading out your frustrations and getting to eat fresh bread slathered in butter is pretty magic at calming frazzled nerves!

1 tsp easy blend yeast (Mary recommends the brand ‘Doves Farm’)

450g granary flour

1 tsp salt

1 tsp honey

1 tbsp sunflower oil

270ml warm water

Put the yeast, flour and salt in a mixing bowl. Dissolve the honey in 100ml warm water then add 200ml of cold water to it. Make a well in the middle of the flour and pour the water into it. Add the oil and mix gradually, using a spoon and then your hands.

Flour a surface (and your hands) and knead the dough for 10 mins, before putting it into a lightly oiled bowl, covered with a tea towel, and leaving it for 2 hours in a warm place or overnight in the fridge.

After waiting for this, knock all the air out of the dough, knead it breifly and roll it into a sausage shape. Put it into a greased loaf tin, seam side down, and cover until doubled in size.

Bake at 200C (or 220C if you don’t have a fan oven) for 15-20 mins, then turn the oven down by 30C for another 15-20 mins. Leave to cool before eating if you can wait, because otherwise it could give you a stomach ache, then enjoy with lots of butter.