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About the Recipe
This recipe is one of the many recipes that I [Hannah] have just stored in my brain, which therefore means it's kind of useless because I don't have it written anywhere. I don't know where I got it from either, so while I would love to link the source, I don't know who taught me this!
Baking bread at home can seem like a really time-consuming task. But we want to prove in this episode (yes, that is another pun) that you can actually make bread at home without too much time or fuss, and it's actually way more delicious than the stuff you can pick up at a shop!
Ingredients
 500g bread flour
7g sachet instant dried yeast
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
2 tbsp oil - either Olive or Vegetable works
300ml warm water
Preparation
To a mixing bowl, pour in the yeast and 300ml warm water, leave it to bloom for a few minutes.
After around 5 minutes, add the flour, mixing with a fork to ensure no flour is left behind on the sides of the bowl, until it's around half-incorporated. Add equal parts sugar and salt, and 2 tbsp of oil. Don't add your salt & sugar and your yeast at the same time, as it messes with the reaction!
Once it's formed a dough, tip this out onto a floured surface and knead for 10 minutes - To knead, stretch the dough away from you with the heel of your hand, and fold over the top towards you. Turn and repeat for 10 minutes, or until your hands are clear of flour & dough residue.
After 10 minutes, roll the dough into a ball, and place it back in its bowl. Coat with flour or a light drizzle of olive oil, then cover with a clean tea-towel and leave to prove for 30 minutes. Hannah tends to prove her bread in an oven at a very low temperature, but any good warm place works.
After its first proof, gently tip the dough back onto your floured surface. Turn the oven up to 200 oC. Gently fold the dough into thirds - try not to knead it too heavily at this point, but it needs about 2 minutes of gentle kneading.
 Shape to your desired form - a ball, an oval, a plait if you're feeling fancy, or just plop into a pre-floured loaf tin. Place onto a floured baking tray, dust flour over the top, and score with a sharp knife - however you feel like. You can do a crosshatch; you could do just one slice. You could do loads of slices. You can even try and do a pattern!
Once the oven is fully heated, slide the bread back into the oven for 30 - 35 minutes, depending on how hot your oven is.
To check bread is fully cooked, turn it upside-down and tap the base with your knuckles - it should sound hollow. Leave to rest on a wire rack for 10+ minutes, or until you simply cannot wait any longer.