A Proper White Tin Loaf

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •900g (2lb) loaf tin
• •Large mixing bowl
• •Kitchen scales
• •Clean tea towel
• •Wire cooling rack

Instructions

1. 1

   Mix the dough

   Tip the flour into a large bowl. Add the yeast to one side and the salt to the other, then stir each into the flour separately. Yeast and salt don't like meeting directly, so give them a moment apart. Add the honey to the lukewarm water, stir to dissolve, and pour it into the flour. Mix with a wooden spoon, then your hand, until you have a shaggy, slightly sticky dough with no dry flour left in the bowl.

   Lukewarm means blood temperature. Dip a finger in. If you can't feel it on your skin, it's right. Hot water kills yeast. Cold water makes it sulk.
2. 2

   Knead until smooth

   Tip the dough onto a clean, lightly floured surface and knead for ten minutes. Push it away from you with the heel of your hand, fold it back, give it a quarter turn, and push again. It will start sticky and uncooperative and end smooth, springy, and slightly tacky. When you press a finger into it and the dent springs back slowly, you're done. Trust your hands. They know before you do.

3. 3

   First prove

   Wipe out the bowl, give it a light film of oil, and put the dough back in. Cover with a clean tea towel or a plate. Leave it somewhere not cold, not hot, just somewhere quiet, for an hour to an hour and a half, until it has doubled in size and looks puffed and proud of itself. The kitchen will start to smell faintly sweet and yeasty. That's the bread waking up.

   Don't watch the clock. Watch the dough. A cold kitchen needs longer, a warm one less. Bread doesn't care what time it is.
4. 4

   Shape the loaf

   Butter a 900g (2lb) loaf tin generously, getting into the corners. Tip the risen dough onto your work surface and press it gently to knock out the big bubbles, but don't beat it flat. Pat it into a rough rectangle about the length of your tin. Roll it up tightly from the long edge, like a Swiss roll, pinching the seam closed underneath. Lift it into the tin, seam side down. It should come about two-thirds of the way up the sides.

5. 5

   Second prove

   Cover the tin loosely with the tea towel and leave it for another forty-five minutes to an hour. The dough should rise to just above the rim of the tin and feel pillowy when you press it gently with a fingertip. The dent should spring back slowly, halfway. If it springs back immediately, give it longer. If it doesn't spring back at all, get it in the oven now.

6. 6

   Bake until golden

   While the loaf is having its second prove, heat the oven to 220C/200C fan. When the dough is ready, dust the top lightly with flour and slide the tin into the middle of the oven. Bake for thirty to thirty-five minutes. The top will go from pale to gold to a deep, burnished brown, and the kitchen will smell, frankly, like the best version of itself. Tip the loaf out of the tin and tap the bottom. A hollow sound means it's done. A dull thud means another five minutes.

   Throw a small handful of ice cubes into the bottom of the hot oven as you put the bread in, if you've got a roasting tray sitting in there. The burst of steam helps the crust crackle. Optional, but nice.
7. 7

   Cool on a rack

   Turn the loaf out of the tin and put it on a wire rack. Leave it for at least thirty minutes before you cut into it. I know. The smell is unbearable and a slice torn off the warm end with butter melting into it is one of the small, perfect things in life. But the crumb is still setting inside, and a hot loaf cuts gummy. Wait if you can. Don't, if you can't. I usually can't.

Chef Tips

• •Buy proper strong white bread flour, the kind with a high protein content. It says 'strong' or 'bread flour' on the bag. Plain flour will give you a sad, dense loaf. The flour is doing most of the work, so it's worth choosing well.
• •Weigh everything, even the water. Bread is the one place I'll tell you to use scales, because the ratio of flour to water matters more than feel until you've made enough loaves to know what the dough should look like in your hands. After ten loaves, you can throw the scales away.
• •The loaf keeps for three days in a paper bag or wrapped in a clean tea towel on the counter. Don't refrigerate it, ever. Cold air stales bread faster than anything. If you've made too much, slice it and freeze the slices flat in a bag. They toast straight from frozen.
• •Day-two bread is for toast. Day-three bread is for breadcrumbs, bread sauce, or a panzanella if it's summer and you've got tomatoes worth eating. Nothing about a homemade loaf needs to go to waste.

Advance Preparation

• •The dough can be slowed down by giving it its first prove in the fridge overnight, eight to twelve hours. The flavour deepens noticeably. Bring it back to room temperature for half an hour before shaping.
• •Once baked and fully cooled, the loaf freezes beautifully. Wrap it in a beeswax wrap or a freezer bag and use within a month. Defrost on the counter or slice it first and toast straight from frozen.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 62g)