Recipe for ‘fridge’ bread

THIS is not some weird experiment caused by watching too much Heston Blumenthal on television or anything. The bread doesn’t cook in the fridge, naturally enough, but it does have a nice long rise in there.

This useful method lets you fit the baking round your day, and avoids annoying your partner with cries of “We can’t do that I’ve got to do my bread.” It also gives the bread more flavour.

This is more of a trick than a recipe, and one discovered on the side of a packet of flour. Always worth looking there, by the way. This particular recipe claimed to be for sourdough bread, which it is not.

Sourdough, bread with no or little yeast, is more involved. Space permitting, I might explain it one day, and will happily email a recipe to anyone who is interested.

Ingredients

600g flour (I used 400 white to 200 wholemeal)
20g fresh yeast (or 10g easy-blend dried)
20g fine salt
600ml warm water
Good slurp of olive oil.

Instructions

• Gently mix the yeast into the dry flour, add the salt and warm water, mix to a dough and knead for a few minutes, adding a touch more flour or water if needed (but don’t overdo it).

• Then add the olive oil to the dough and knead for a few minutes more (eight or ten in total). Put dough in bowl covered with oiled clingfilm and place in fridge overnight or all day, or for up to 18 hours.

• Remove, shape cold dough into loaves on oiled and flour-dusted baking trays, place in cold oven above a bowl filled with water from the just-boiled kettle; close oven door and leave bread to rise for an hour or so.

• Remove when risen, turn oven on to full blast for ten minutes, dust loaves with flour slash with serrated knife, and put in oven.

• After ten minutes, reduce temperature to 200C and cook for 25 minutes or so, remove trays and put loaves back in for a few minutes. Cool.

Tip: How to shape loaves. Shape dough into flat round, roll towards you and form into long baguette-type shape. Stretch and flatten. Then fold two ends over, flatten, roll and shape.