gal—dem HARD DOUGH Marie Mitchell- Island Social Club

Please see my very simple but delicious hard dough bread recipe. A love letter to the bread of my youth and all things comfort—Hard Dough

Photographer: Chiron Cole

Ingredients

450g plain 1 sachet of fast action yeast 1.5 tbsp demerara 1 tsp salt 70g (or vegan butter) 230ml of tepid water, you need a 2/3s to 1/3 of cold/boiling water for the right temperature to avoid killing the yeast Olive oil for greasing

@mariemitchellchef gal—dem

Method:

1 A dd all dry ingredients to a large mixing bowl, keeping the yeast and salt s eparate. Keeping these separate initially avoids the salt killing the yeast.

Mix well.

2 Cut in the butter and mix with your fingers to get a slightly breadcrumb consistency.

3 Add water slowly to bring the dough together, you might not need all of your water. Once you can form a ball, tip out your dough and knead for around 15 - 20 minutes. You want a nice soft ball that's springy when you poke it.

4 Place your lovely dough ball into a greased container, I like to use olive oil, making sure your ball is greased all round. Cover with a clean damp tea towel and preferably somewhere warm and leave to prove for 40 minutes.

5 Turn out your dough and knock it back, kneading gently around 5 times.

6 Grease your loaf pan with olive oil and shape your dough to fit. If you've doubled the recipe, you will need to split the dough in two and grease two loaf tins. Leave to prove for another 40 minutes, covered with your damp tea towel.

7 Preheat oven to 180 degrees.

8 Bake for around 25 minutes or until golden as ovens can vary, when tapped your bread should sound hollow.

9 Enjoy cut or ripped warm, with butter, soup, curry or simply on its own.

@mariemitchellchef