RECIPE: Green Farm Home Baked Bread

If you have visited Green Farm as a Spa day or Retreat guest or booked for a Special Event then chances are you have sampled our delicious home-baked bread. So today we thought we'd share our secret recipe with you to try at home.

Both methods start the same and use a bread maker to prepare the dough but you can choose to bake the bread in your bread maker or as we do in our AGA oven. We always use organic stoneground Stoates Flour.

Ingredients

• 10 oz (400 g) organic wholemeal strong flour

• 14 oz (280g) organic white strong flour

• 14 Fluid oz (14 oz, 400g) tepid water

• 1 teaspoon olive oil

• 1 teaspoon honey

• ½ teaspoon salt

• 1 teaspoon yeast

• 2 teaspoons each of poppy & sesame seeds to taste

Method for preparing the dough

1. Put the bowl of the bread maker on the scales (or weigh if your scales are not flat), set it to zero grams (or ounces).

2. Pour water into the bowl to 14 oz (400g).

3. Add salt, honey & olive oil.

4. Reset the scales to zero.

5. Add 14 oz (400g) white and 10 oz (280g) brown flour (making 1lb 8 oz (680g) altogether).

6. Add yeast, sesame and poppy seeds.

7. Select the dough programme on the bread maker and press “start”. Our bread maker takes 45 minutes which can be put on a time delay

Cooking method for oven baking

1. After taking the bread dough from the bread maker shape it on a floured worktop, put it evenly into the bread tin, we use a liner with ours.

2. Prove for an hour or slightly longer next to your AGA top or in a warm place at home.

3. Place into a preheated oven at 180 degrees for 30 minutes.

4. Take out of the oven and leave to cool on a cooling tray.

Cooking method for quick bread maker bread

1. After following steps 1 to 6 of the dough method above select the relevant programme on your bread maker to knead, prove and bake the bread, on average it will take around 2 hours to complete.

2. Ensure you take the bread out as soon as it is done and put it on a cooling rack.

Now all you need to do is enjoy it! Is there anything more homely and heart-warming than freshly baked bread?

This bread has no preservatives so will only last a day or two. Once cool, if you are not eating it all straight away, cut the loaf into slices, put into a plastic food bag and freeze. You can then take slices out of the freezer and toast as required (our toaster has a "toast from frozen" setting).