Hungarian farmers bread

Fresh bread

Inspired by a post that Ben made on his blog “What’s Cooking” about homemade bread I realized I had never really made my own bread. I had done it only once with one of those packages you can buy in the supermarket. The only thing you need to add is water and the rest is all pretty simple. After reading Ben’s post I decided it was maybe time I tried to bake a proper bread. I have this book about bread which had been standing on the shelf for a long time, so after going through the many many options for making bread I decided it was probably best to start of simple. So this bread is a pretty basic bread (I think) but it’s still a lot of kneading, rising, kneading again, rising etc…

Nothing better then bread and butter

We will eat this tonight for dinner with some lovely stuff on top (still have to think of what exactly…:) but if you want to try this for yourself; here is the recipe.

Hungarian farmers bread

450 gr wheatflour

2 tsp salt

1/2 teaspoon of sesame-seeds

1 tbsp castersugar

20 gr fresh yeast (I used 7 gr of instant yeast)

2,75 dl lukewarm water

2 tbsp melted butter

For the crust:

1 eggwhite

bit of salt

2 tsp sesame-seeds to spread over the top

1. Put a little butter on a baking tray. Put the flour and the salt in a large bowl and stir the sesame adn sugar through it. Make a little hole in the middle.

2. Add the yeast to a little water and stir until creamy, add the rest of the water and pour into the hole. Stir in enough flour for a liquid dough. Sprinkle with some flour, cover and put it on a warm spot til it starts to rise and bubble.

3. Add the melted butter and mix everything till it is a an equally spread dough. Knead the dough on a  surface covered with some flour in 8- 10 minutes smooth and elastic. Put it in a bowl that is rubbed with a little oil to prevent sticking, cover with greased plastic foil and leave to rise in a warm spot for 45-60 minutes until the volume has doubled.

4. Beat the dough back on a flour covered surface. Make an oval out of it and put it on the baking tray. Cover the dough with greased plastic foil and leave it in a warm spot for another 30-40 minutes to rise untill the volume has doubled.

5. Preheat the oven at 220 ° C. Mix the eggwhite and the salt and put some on top of the bread. Sprinkle with the sesame seed and cut with a sharp knife over the top of the bread. Bake the bread for 20 minutes and put the temperature down to 180 °C and bake for another 10 minutes untill it sounds hollow when you tap the bottom of the bread. Leave to cool on a rack.