Baking Bread
Why it is good for people who work from home
As I made breakfast this morning, I threw two teaspoons of sugar and one of dried yeast into 120ml of warm water.
By the time I washed up after breakfast, I had some happy yeast, munching away on sugar and farting like crazy. I put 170g bread flour (half and half white & wholemeal today) into a bowl, added a bit of salt, poured in the yeasty brew, and mangled it about in the bowl for about a minute. That went on top of the hot water tank, covered with a tea towel (the bread towel), and I got to work.
I had an alarm set for 10 am, at which point I had to get out of my chair, and there is my point boys and girls.
I got out of my chair, took the slightly risen dough, and mangled it about in the bowl for a minute. You can spend ages kneading your dough (who comes up with these spellings?) if you want to, but I am making what is basically a large bread bun to go with soup, not an artisan loaf to sell at a farmers market for £15, so I just smack it around in the bowl, then roll it into a sort of oval lump, and plonk it onto a piece of baking paper on a tray. Sealed in a plastic bag to make an airtight tent, this goes back on the hot water tank for an hour.
Because I do this at least once a week, I have this part down to about three minutes, including all cleaning (Tip-leave the washing up water from breakfast for cleaning the bowl). The important part is that it gets me on my feet, then I can go back to work.
An hour later (alarm set) I get off my backside and switch the oven on (200°C or 400°F if you want to try this at home).
15 minutes later I get off my backside again, take the tray and the now bigger lump of dough out of the bag, and slap it in the oven. I even re-use the same bag, environment and all that.
Ten minutes later, I turn the big fat bread bun around, because even fan ovens toast one side more than the other. Back to work I go.
Seven minutes later I take the bread and all its wonderful smells out of the oven, wrap it in the bread towel, and go back to work.
Another half hour of work takes me through to lunch. Nice warm fresh bread, with crappy tinned oxtail soup (I just like it) and doing this has got me off my chair for short bursts throughout the morning, when otherwise I would have been welded to my office chair. The downside of being a writer is spending far too long sitting down, and doing little things like this gets you moving. I also make scones, flapjack, biscuits, anything quick and easy, but you also have to be disciplined and not munch your way through the lot, otherwise obesity kicks in and you die, which isn’t so good for your health.
So there you go, today’s top tip to be healthier and more awake as a writer, or any other job that involves sitting at your desk at home for too long, is to find something that takes very little time, but gets you to stand up for a little while instead of sitting all bloody day. I reckon on a bread day, making my big fat bread bun adds maybe 5 minutes at the most to breakfast, and because I do not do the celebrity chef thing and spend ages on fancy kneading which requires dismantling half the kitchen to clean it afterwards, probably takes no more than another five minutes in total to finish, including all cleaning.
Oh, and the title picture. If you move the re from Breaking and put it into Bad, you get Baking Bread.
Just in case you were wondering.
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Sitting down all day to write was one of the reasons i hated working from home so much. Could have done with your bread making tips then! Also, I'm now dreaming of freshly baked bread and salted butter, so thanks for that
That's actually how I was taught to do it at the baking school. The flour needs time to absorb all the liquids and then rest a bit - much less kneading required that way. 💜