So, it’s been a really busy day. My husband decided to work from home and as we only had some dry Hovis, fit for toasting only, in the house, I decided to bake some bread. My everyday, easy peasy bake is Ciabatta and it’s so yummy all warm and filled with Parma ham and Rocket. I wanted to take a photo of the sandwiches when they were made but they smelled so lovely that I forgot all about it I’m afraid.

Anyway, here’s how to make them:

Put 500g of white bread flour, 1 teaspoon of salt, 2x14g packets of fast acting yeast and 300ml of luke warm water into a mixer with the dough hook attached. Work it on low/medium for a couple of minutes and then add  another 100ml of luke warm water and turn the speed up to medium/high for five minutes.

Whilst that is going, spread some olive oil around a bowl (big enough for the dough to double) and when done, tip the dough into it. Prove for an hour in a room that’s not too cold.

Then tip it out onto a well-floured surface (I put lots of flour onto a baking paper so that I don’t have to spend ages cleaning dough off the kitchen surface). Cut the dough into four pieces and stretch them out onto two baking trays covered with baking paper. Turn the oven onto 215-220 degrees and leave for half an hour to rest. Then cook for 25 minutes before turning them out onto a wire rack to cool.

Put something salty, like Parma ham, in them and sigh away.

See, so easy and it’s stuff that you can always have at home for emergencies. At this point I would just like to point out that my husband doesn’t expect fresh bread when he’s at home and will generally eat anything. Apart from butterbeans and horseradish that is.

I’m off to Brighton tomorrow to meet up with my ‘Tea and Moles’ co-writer Colin and I should really be editing and revising and preparing for it now. Maybe it’s a tomorrow morning job. 🙂

Hasta la vista chaps

Marie