Crusty Brown Bread

This week I made a lovely crusty brown bread to go with dinner. I really like baking in the cast iron pan lately, it gives the bread such a good crunch.

The Recipe

100g strong white bread flour

220g strong wholemeal flour

100g seeded malt flour, or similar

275ml water

1tbsp oil

1tsp salt

1tsp brown sugar

1 crushed vitamin C tablet

7g yeast (1 ½ tsp)

I used a dough cycle on the machine. Add the ingredients as per your machine's manufacturers instructions. When the dough cycle is finished, shape the dough into a ball and pop in a well-floured proofing basket to rise. Put the basket into a plastic carrier bag (5p bag charge from your local supermarket) and tie it up and leave for an hour or so until doubled in size.

Put a cast iron pan to heat in the oven at 245c or 225c fan oven. Remove the pan when the oven is up to temperature, then tip the dough upside down into the pan. Don't worry if the dough isn't straight, it will bake fine. Put the lid on the pan and then bake for 30 minutes. Remove the lid and bake for a further 15 minutes. Carefully remove the bread from the pan and leave to cool on a wire rack.