Directions

Making your loaf

For a stand mixer:

1. Combine bread mix, yeast, potato starch OR corn starch and water in the bowl of your stand mixer.

2. Use your normal beater, NOT the dough hook.

3. Start mixing the dough on low speed – the dough will come together quickly – but we do not stop there…

4. Once the dough has come together, we are going to “break it” – this means mixing it hard at an increased speed until the dough becomes less firm that it was initially.

5. When it is “breaking”, it will come apart and stick to the sides of the bowl when you beat very fast – do this for 2-3 min.

6. Stop the mixer and gather the dough back together with a spatula - it will be quite sticky at this point.

7. Transfer the dough to the loaf tin. Push it in to ensure it is evenly distributed.

8. Score your loaf to ensure that it can rise unconstrained. This is critical! Make sure the main score runs almost the full length of your loaf.

For hand kneading:

1. Combine bread mix, yeast, potato OR corn starch and water in a large bowl.

2. Use a spoon or spatula to mix the ingredients - when they start to come together, get your hands in there and start kneading.

3. Once the mixture is homogenous, transfer to a clean bench or flat surface where you can work the dough hard for 8-10 min.

4. Bring it together and then push it apart with the heel of your hand – don’t try to keep it in a nice pile, your aim is to “break” the dough, and then put it back together again.

5. When it is “breaking”, it will become stickier so if it’s sticking to your surface – good job – use a spatula to scrape it off and back into the pile.

6. Gather the dough back together and use your hands to make an oval ball.

7. Transfer your dough ball to the loaf tin and push it in to ensure it is evenly distributed.

8. Score your loaf to ensure that it can rise unconstrained. This is critical! Make sure the main score runs almost the full length of your loaf.

Proofing your loaf

You now need to create a nice space for your dough to prove. If you have a proven method that you know gets good results, you can do this. If not, you need to prove your loaf in the oven as per steps 9-11 below.

1. Leave the oven OFF and add a heat proof bowl of boiling water at the bottom of your oven – use ~1.5L of boiling water – this will create a moist environment for the loaf to rise.

2. Put your loaf above the boiling water (on the shelf that you usually bake on) and close the oven door.

3. Leave your dough to rise for about 1hr and 15min – the loaf should approx. double in size. *If your kitchen is very cold (like ours in winter) and/or your oven poorly insulated, proofing can take a bit longer. Check your loaf at 1hr 15min and if it hasn’t grown enough you can replace the boiling water and leave for up to 45min.

Baking your loaf

1. Remove the proofing bowl and water from the oven.

2. At this point you can re-score your loaf to ensure that the loaf can further expand during the baking process.

3. Turn your oven on to 175 degrees C and put a timer on for 1 hr and 5 min - I find my gas oven is a lot cooler than my electric oven so you may need to crank it up to 185 if you know that your oven runs a bit cool.

4. Set a time for 40 min – at this point you can brush the top of your loaf with water or olive oil to stop it from drying out too much.

5. Check your loaf at 1 hr 5 min – it should be hard on top so that you can knock on it and get a nice sound.

6. Once baked, tip your loaf out of the tin and allow it to cool on a wire cooling rack.

7. Allow your loaf to cool completely – if you try to cut it too early it will be VERY hard to cut and misshapen by the end of your efforts – it is very soft inside with a firm crust! It is very hard to resist but you must! Enjoy.