A GUIDE TO USING YOUR LOAF

Home-made bread is incomparable, says Tom Jaine, and not too difficult. In the first of our series on flour power, he introduces Michael Bateman to white-flour breads

IS IT possible to bake a better loaf at home than one you buy? The growing band of British home bakers will say yes, of course it is. Most bread you make yourself is tastier and has a better texture.

Some home bakers, like Tom Jaine, whose recipes we publish here, would go further. He would say it's almost impossible to make bread as boring as most of the stuff sold in supermarkets. "The quality of baked goods in this country is appalling."

Until quite recently, home bread-making seemed to be a dying art, as anachronistic as writing sonnets or clerihews. Didn't baking bread at home go out with William Cobbett, whose Rural Rides, written more than a century ago, was a last desperate crusade to defy the engulfing tide of the Industrial Revolution?

But we have come full circle. Now there's a feeling that a factory-made loaf is a cheat. Mass-produced bread is to bread as powdered coffee is to real coffee - cheap, quick, convenient. In fact, Tom Jaine drinks powdered coffee but he won't eat the "loathsome" bread.

Just think of the satisfaction of producing your own bread: a flavoursome English tin loaf, a rustic Italian bread, a ciabatta; or something unusual, like a Swiss zopf (plaited milk bread) or pretzels.

How to start? Over to Tom Jaine, author of Making Bread at Home (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, pounds 14.99), which must be the most concise, clear and user-friendly book on bread ever written. Tom Jaine is better known as a restaurant critic (he was editor of the Good Food Guide), though he has switched now to publishing food-related books, having bought Pros-pect Books from the food scholar Alan Davidson.

He acquired his feeling for good food early in life, at the hands of his stepfather, George Perry-Smith, who opened his restaurant, the Hole- in-the-Wall, in Bath in 1952 - the bleak post-war austerity period. He was a lone prophet of the restaurant culture we enjoy today.

Decent bread was one of his first priorities. Tom Jaine remembers how his stepfather went to a local baker with a recipe for a French stick, and asked him to bake it for the restaurant. "It was very English, but it was very good. Dusted with poppy seeds."

After university (where he read history) Tom Jaine became an archivist. Then in 1974 his stepfather roped him in to start up a new restaurant venture, The Carved Angel at Dartmouth. He was to help Joyce Molyneux manage the place. Also part of the team was the woman who became his wife, Sally.

From the start they made their own bread, unusual among the restaurants of the day. It was no big deal, Tom Jaine considers. Every day they made four white loaves and four brown. "You took 134lbs of white flour and 134lbs of brown flour. It was a job for the apprentice, the simple-minded boy."

Later, a meeting at the Oxford Food Symposium fired his enthusiasm for bread as a subject worthy of study. Armed with a scholarly manual by the Paris master baker, Lionel Poilane, Guide de l'amateur de Pain, he constructed his own brick oven in the garden of his home in Devon.

And here we are now, in the kitchen of his farmhouse, deep in a hilly fold among the winding lanes of Devon, a bucolic scene to arouse the envy of any town-dweller. A high stone-walled garden features golden pumpkins large enough to make into Cinderella's carriage.

The floor tiles glow, the Aga gleams (Sally makes the family bread in it); copper pans, a wire egg basket and other delightful artifacts hang on the wall. There's a wood butcher's block. Four cats and a dog complete the rustic picture.

In the garden, smoke filters from the chimney of his famous bread oven, a mixture of concrete, packed earth and brick. It has a religious aspect, as if it's an altar where he might practise his devotions, especially as it's sited close by a gothic stone reredos rescued from a local church, a bargain at pounds 100.

Flour power. Tom Jaine indicates a basket full of packets of flour. White flours and wholemeal, preferably stoneground and unbleached. He doesn't seek out organic flour, he says, though he may use it, but there's one flour that he will on no account buy, and that's the one supermarkets sell as Bread Flour or Strong Flour. What do they put in it? Added gluten, improvers, bleaches? He doesn't know, but it has no flavour. It's probably the same flour with which they make their own breads, which also have very little flavour.

Of the many hundreds of varieties on the supermarket shelves, you can count on three fingers of one hand the decent breads, he says: Safeways' ciabatta, Waitrose's French country bread (pain de campagne) and their Russian rye loaf.

Now Tom Jaine demonstrates how he makes a simple dough with strong Canadian flour from a Polish shop, the only one he knows that sells it. Strong flour from hard wheat produces bread full of bounce. What a miracle that our civilisation has produced a staple food from a paste of grass seed and water. How did they do that? Wild yeasts in the air ferment the sugars in the grain's starch, producing gas (carbon dioxide). Flour, as we now know, contains a gluey substance called gluten and, as the gases can't escape, the mixture aerates or, as we say, rises.

Flour, water, yeast, salt. Not exactly a very long list of ingredients. Tom Jaine likes to use fresh yeast. Every baker has it, but they don't always like to sell it to you, in case you stop buying their bread. Well. Or they overcharge you. You can use dried yeast which comes in packages or tins (use half the weight of fresh yeast). A tin lasts for ages. Or you can buy the easy blends, quick-acting yeasts that aren't cheap but do what they claim, work quickly.

Now, here's an interesting point. Bread that's made quickly isn't as good as bread made slowly, Tom Jaine says. The more time the yeast has to act, the better the dough matures and the more interesting the flavour and texture.

So how do you slow down a dough? Use less yeast than a recipe specifies. Use colder water. Let the dough rise in a cooler place, perhaps start it in the fridge, and leave it overnight. Extreme cold slows down, even halts, yeast action, but doesn't kill it. Extreme heat does.

It takes Tom Jaine some 15 minutes of pummelling and pulling, slapping and stretching, to get the dough to the required silky, elastic ball that will make a really good bouncy loaf. Granary bread, he confesses, might be a better option for the beginner. The malt sugars accelerate the action of the yeast, and there's very little kneading required.

He puts his dough in its bowl to the side of the Aga, a warm place where it will rise to more than double its size. How long? It's not desperately important. "Dough is very forgiving," he says. It's only commercial bakers who think time is of the essence, since to them time is money. Over the last 30 years, with the help of government-sponsored research, they have reduced the time it takes to "prove" dough from three hours to a few minutes, employing a fast-mixing technique using flour improvers. (They improve efficiency not quality.)

Tom Jaine does use one flour improver. Fat. A little fat or oil helps dough to rise evenly. Lard is very effective, if unfashionable. Butter gives a soft crumb. Olive oil and other oils give a soft crust. If you want a crackly and crisp crust on, say, a French baguette, don't use it.

There's so much to say about making your own bread. But instead of trying to say it all, we offer you here a selection of Tom Jaine's recipes. Any one of them will present you with a challenge which will be that small step, if not for mankind, at least for your family.

This week we cover plain white breads. Next week we'll be looking at wholemeal bread and bread made from other flours: rye, oats, barley, maize. And in a third week of Flour Power, we'll be joined by the cake queen of Britain, Mary Berry, to look at the flours that make the best cakes.

SPLIT TIN LOAF

Although many British loaves, especially in the last 30 years, have become simple doughs that take no more than an hour or two to make, there are more lengthy processes that still find favour, particularly because they allow time for the wheaty taste to develop, and for as little yeast as possible to be used - both economical and good for long-keeping.

One of these longer processes is called the Scottish sponge, because a runny sponge was made the night before which acted as a ferment for the whole dough. These split tin loaves are made according to that system. They are baked together in a block, though not in the same tin. You will find that packing them close together in the oven encourages high rise, and sometimes a wild movement towards each other.

Makes 4 loaves

The first sponge:

450g/1lb unbleached white bread flour

1 teaspoon salt

7g/14oz fresh yeast

250ml/9fl oz cold water

Second stage: 800ml/27fl oz tepid water

4g/18oz fresh yeast

700g/112lb unbleached white plain flour

15g/12oz salt

Final dough:

800g/134lb unbleached white plain flour

37g/134oz salt

60ml/2fl oz tepid water

Mix the flour for the first sponge with the salt in a medium-sized bowl. Make a well in the centre and crumble in the 7g/14oz yeast. Pour the cold water over the yeast and stir with your finger to dissolve. Draw in the flour and mix thoroughly. Turn out on to a floured work surface and knead for 10 minutes, until entirely smooth. It will be a firm dough. Leave to rise in a bowl covered with oiled clingfilm, overnight, at room temperature .

The next day, break the ball of risen sponge into small pieces in a larger bowl, one that's big enough to take the final dough. Pour on the tepid water for the second stage and mix it to a slurry, squeezing it through your fingers. Crumble the 4g/18oz yeast into this thick soup, then add the flour and salt for this stage, mixing vigorously.

At this stage the dough will be very moist and impossible to knead. Give it at least 200 beats with your hand, or a with large mixing spoon, to condition the flour. Leave the bowl covered with oiled clingfilm in a warm spot for about one hour, when it should have doubled.

Mix together the flour and salt for the final dough, then mix it gradually into the sponge. When all of it has been added, bring in the last stragglers of dry flour with a little tepid water. Mix until the dough leaves the sides of the bowl. Turn on to the floured work surface and knead for 10 minutes. The dough will be supple, but not too wet.

Leave it to rise in a bowl covered with oiled clingfilm in a warm place for about 112 hours until it has doubled in size. Turn out on to the lightly floured work surface, divide into four and form into balls. Roll into shape and place in four warmed and greased 1kg/2lb bread tins. Cover with oiled clingfilm and leave to prove in a warm place until domed above the tops of the tins. Cut the loaves with a sharp knife down the length of the top to give a "split tin" shape, if wished. Meanwhile, heat the oven to 230C/450F/Gas 8.

Bake the loaves close together at the top of the oven for 15-20 minutes, then reduce the oven temperature to 200C/400F/Gas 6 and bake for a further 20 minutes.

Cool the loaves on wire racks.

YEASTED STARTER DOUGH

BIGA

The Italian biga is a piece of matured dough with a speck of yeast in it. It gives loaves a more interesting texture than a simple yeast dough that was ripened for only a few hours.

225g/8oz unbleached white plain flour

7g/14oz fresh yeast

90ml/3fl oz tepid water

Make a well in the middle of the flour, crumble in the yeast and add the water. Mix to cream the yeast, then extend the mixing to incorporate the flour.

Mix until all the dry flour has been taken up, then knead on a work surface to a stiff and smooth dough. Leave in a bowl covered with clingfilm overnight (12 hours or more) at a temperature not less than 21C/70F.

It should rise once and fall back again before being used for a bread dough, as in the recipes for Italian country bread and ciabatta (below).

PAN PUGLIESE

ITAIIAN COUNTRY BREAD

This flavoursome country bread comes from the heel of Italy, Apulia. It has tenderness from the olive oil, lots of taste from the biga, and a deep crust into the bargain. Were it made by an Italian farmer's wife and taken to the village bake-house to be cooked, it would be proved in a cloth-lined basket and turned out on to a baker's long-hand-led wooden shovel before being slipped on to the floor of the oven. The same technique can be followed at home, but manoeuvring this soft loaf on to a shovel and slipping it on to a sheet or stone already in the oven is a tricky procedure and many will find it safer to turn it carefully out of the basket on to a warmed and oiled baking sheet.

Alternatively, it can be proved directly on the baking sheet. It will spread quite alarmingly, and the final rise will be more subject to draughts and patchy cooling, but the end result is still scrumptious.

Makes 1 large loaf

200g/7oz biga (see above)

300ml/10fl oz tepid water

15g/12 oz fresh yeast

2 teaspoons salt

2 tablespoons olive oil

500g/1lb 2oz wheatmeal (85 per cent extraction) bread flour; or equal parts unbleached white and wholemeal (100per cent) bread flour

Combine the biga, water, yeast and salt in a bowl and mix to dissolve the biga by squeezing it through the fingers of one hand. Add the olive oil, then add the flour a cupful at a time, beating all the while.

Mix to a dough that has some resilience, then turn it on to a floured work surface to knead. It will be quite moist, but come together with working as the flour takes up all the liquid. Knead for 10 minutes. Leave the dough to rise in a bowl covered with oiled clingfilm in a warm place (24C/75F) for about two hours, until nearly trebled in size.

Turn out the dough on to the lightly floured work surface, knock back (ie, press it down firmly with your hand) and shape into a ball. Prove it either upside down in a floured, cloth-lined proving basket or the right way up directly on an oiled and warmed baking sheet. Leave the dough to prove, covered by oiled clingfilm, for about an hour to an hour and a half, until doubled. Meanwhile, heat the oven to at least 230C/ 450F/Gas 8 and put a deep, but empty, baking tray or roasting pan in the bottom.

Dust the loaf lightly and score with a chequerboard of slashes, or leave it to crack free-style in the oven. Place it in the oven and pour a little water into the warmed roasting pan or baking tray, taking care it does not bubble and scald you in the steam. If you have proved in a basket, you will need to have a preheated baking sheet in the oven. Turn your basket-proved loaf on to a baker's long-handled shovel, then slide it on to the baking sheet.

Bake the loaf on an upper shelf in the oven for about 30-40 minutes. If your oven gets really hot, turn it down to 220C/425F/Gas 7 after 20 minutes to avoid the crust being too browned. The loaf is cooked when it sounds hollow when tapped.

Cool the loaf on a wire rack.

CIABATTA

One of the great successes of British bread-making in the last 10 years has been the overwhelming acceptance of this Italian loaf. The dough and method come from the north of Italy, around the city of Como at the edge of the great Alpine lake, though it has perhaps travelled further in mind and technological process than actual miles on the road. What appeals especially to the British is the cakey tenderness that comes from the olive oil in the dough and the soft, flavoursome crust.

Ciabatta is not an easy loaf to make at home. There are perhaps two things which set commercial bakeries apart from home production. The first is the nature of the ovens; the second is the willingness and ability of the professional to handle moist and difficult doughs.

Ciabatta is one of the wettest doughs and the temptation to add more flour is almost irresistible, even though that would change the nature of the loaf itself. The dough is kneaded in the bowl rather than on the table, which helps to combat the temptation. It is unfortunate that different flours need different amounts of water. No recipe, therefore, can get it exactly right. Another temptation for the home cook is to disbelieve the cookery book.

The flour I use every day is a stoneground, organic, unbleached white flour of bread-making quality. This absorbs less water than a finely roller- milled North American hard spring wheat, but rather more than a soft flour that is suitable for general kitchen purposes.

A ciabatta made according to this recipe may have better flavour than a commercial loaf, inasmuch as it uses the Italian yeasted starter, biga, which is ripened for 12 hours or more, to add flavour.

You can also control the quality of olive oil in the dough, trying to find something fresh and fruity to give that added pungency, though this recipe does not rely on oil as much as some English interpretations do.

Makes 1 loaf

225g/8oz biga (see page 57)

15g/12oz fresh yeast

200ml/7fl oz warm water

300g/10oz unbleached white bread flour

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons dried milk powder

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

Put the biga in a large bowl and crumble in the yeast. Pour in the water and mix to a soup, squeezing the dough through your fingers to break it up. Mix the flour with the salt and the milk powder, then add to the liquid in the bowl handful by handful, mixing vigorously all the while.

When you have added all the flour, pour in the olive oil and continue mixing with circular sweeps of the cupped hand, lifting the dough and stretching it at each beat. In this way, you are conditioning the flour and stretching the gluten. Although it will continue impossibly wet, all the time you work it the flour is absorbing the moisture and taking on more of the character of a normal dough.

Eventually, change the movement to something more like kneading - bringing the hand round in a sweeping motion, then punching the fist right into the dough. Count on performing at least 1,000 mixing or kneading movements. Pause occasionally, to wipe your brow.

Leave the dough to rise in a bowl covered with clingfilm in a warm place (26C/80F) for about 212 hours. It will grow considerably. The consistency of the dough makes it unlikely that you will want to knock it back and shape it on the work surface.

The simpler procedure is to prepare a warmed baking sheet with a heavy dusting of flour. Pour the risen dough over the centre of the baking sheet, then tease this rough pile into an oblong shape measuring about 30cm x 15cm/12in x 6 in. Either use the edge of a dough scraper to push round the edges, or use your well- floured fingertips to push and tuck the edge into shape.

Shake flour over the top of the loaf, cover it with oiled clingfilm and leave it to prove at 26C/80F for about 45 minutes. It will spread as well as rise. Meanwhile, heat the oven to 230C/450F/Gas 8.

Bake the bread in the centre of the oven for about 20-25 minutes.

Cool the ciabatta a wire rack.

PRETZELS

There are two sorts of pretzel (called brezeln in German). One is a hard and salty biscuit that helps sharpen the thirst for a long cool drink of beer, the other is a larger and softer salted bread sold especially in America, having been brought there by Ger-man immigrants in the 19th century.

The name refers to the shape, which is an ancient one made by early Christians as a Lenten bread, the crossed arms symbolising the Cross. The derivation of the name is from the Latin bracellae, "little arms". Sweet biscuits are also made to this pattern in Germany and Austria.

Pretzel dough is like a bagel, in that it is poached before baking, which is what gives it a chewy texture.

Makes 16

15g/12oz fresh yeast

200ml/7fl oz tepid water

90ml/3fl oz tepid milk

450g/1lb unbleached white bread flour

1 teaspoon salt

30g/1oz butter, melted

1 egg beaten with 2 tablespoons milk for glaze

sea salt crystals

Cream the yeast in the water and milk in a bowl. Mix the flour and the one teaspoon of salt. Make a well in the centre of the flour and pour in the liquid. Mix to a rough dough, adding the melted butter while mixing. Mix thoroughly until the dough leaves the sides of the bowl. Turn on to a well floured work surface and knead for five minutes.

Leave the dough to rise in a bowl covered with oiled clingfilm in a warm place (24C/75F) for about one hour, until doubled in size.

Turn out the dough on to the lightly floured work surface and knead for another five minutes. Divide the dough into 16 pieces. Form them into small balls and leave them covered on the side of the work surface.

Ensuring that there is plenty of dusting flour to avoid sticking, roll each piece with the flat of the hands into pencils about 30cm/12in in length. Bend each pretzel into a horseshoe, then bring the ends up to the top of the shoe, crossing and twisting once in the centre. Leave to prove on a floured board, covered with a cloth, for 10 minutes.

Heat a large pan of salted water to a bare simmer. Drop each pretzel in turn into the poaching water and remove with a slotted spoon as soon as it rises to the surface. Drain them on a clean tea towel. Meanwhile, heat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6.

Place the poached pretzels on greased baking sheets, brush with the glaze and sprinkle them with sea salt crystals. Bake the pretzels for approximately 25-30 minutes, until golden brown. Cool them on wire racks.

ZOPF

SWISS PLAITED LOAF

People in Switzerland, southern Germany and Austria have a great tradition of fancy baking, for feast days, holidays or just for Sundays. A Sunday favourite for Swiss families, this plaited bread is ideal with butter and jam for tea or breakfast; it is also good for luxury sandwiches (it contains no sugar). There is a symbol behind the plait: it represents the braid of the warrior's widow, cut off before she joins him in the afterlife.

Makes 1 loaf

600g/114 lb unbleached white bread flour

2 teaspoons salt

30g/1oz fresh yeast

150ml/5fl oz milk and 150ml/5fl oz soured cream, warmed together to 32C/90F

1 egg, beaten

120g/4oz butter, softened

1 egg, beaten, for glaze

Mix the flour and salt in a bowl and make a well in the centre. Crumble the yeast into the well and add the warm milk and soured cream. Mix to dissolve with your fingers. Add the beaten egg and the butter, and mix to a dough. Turn on to a floured work surface and knead for five to 10 minutes, until soft and shiny. Leave the dough to rise in a bowl covered with oiled clingfilm in a warm place for about one hour, until doubled in size.

Turn it on to the lightly floured work surface, knock back and form into a ball. Divide this into four and roll each piece into a sausage shape, about 25cm/10in long and 2.5cm/1in thick. With a strong flour, you will have to work in stages, with a little rest between, so as not to stretch the dough too quickly.

To make the dough into a plait, press the four long pieces together at one end, giving them a little twist and tuck for neatness. Counting from your left, fold 1 over 2, 3 over 1, 4 under 1, and 4 over 3. Repeat until you reach the end. As you work, the strands will probably lengthen. Nip and tuck the second end in the same way as the first end. Place the finished loaf on a greased baking sheet, cover it with oiled clingfilm and leave to prove in a warm place for about 40 minutes. Meanwhile, heat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6.

Brush the loaf with the beaten egg and bake in the centre of the oven for 35-45 minutes. Cool on a wire rack. !

The most effective grain for bread-making is wheat, not only because it tastes good - a certain nuttiness, no bitterness, and with a round, sometimes rich flavour - but because it performs well. An ear of wheat has all the ingredients for a good loaf: starch to give bulk, feed the yeasts and turn a lovely golden brown in the oven; germ to lend essential fats and oils, and to improve bread's nutritional value; bran to lend weight and help digestion; and gluten, that magic component wheat has more of than any other grain, which lets the loaf stretch and rise to perfection.

Wheats vary from one breed, one harvest and one location to another. Crops grown in hot, dry summers over a short season contain more protein than those from cooler places. Hence wheat from North America, Hungary, north India and Australia is particularly blessed. The gluten content is high, and loaves will rise better and be lighter. This is called hard wheat, and it makes a strong flour.

North European wheats were mainly softer than this, their flour weaker. A soft flour is ideal for making pastry and cakes; bread made with them will tend to be denser and less refined. The big advantage of soft wheat, however, is its flavour. It simply has more. The hearty country loaves of France illustrate this point perfectly.

Now, European wheats, through careful breeding, are no longer as soft as they were; and they can be altered by adding pure gluten and other improvers. But it is still worth finding 100 per cent American strong flour just to see the remarkable properties of spring wheat from the prairies.