Play with your food.

For a long time now, the majority of the posts I've made about bread have been pretty straight forward and plain.

Simple recipes, simple techniques which are all part of the learning curve to making bread. Experimenting with ingredients, experimenting with techniques and combinations of both.

There have been some highlights and some less palatable results. No disasters thankfully.

Furthering the progression of simple bread making I thought to talk a little bit about shaping bread.

In short, play with your dough.

In earlier articles, I've mentioned a pretty straightforward recipe that just plain works, is low in sugar and salt and that can last up to a week just sealed in an air-tight container without refrigeration. Here's a quick version of that so that we're both on the same page:

• 500 g plain flour
• 20 g sugar
• 5 g salt
• 2 level tablespoons yeast
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 310 ml water
• Combine in your dough-capable food processor or bench mixer
• rise 30 minutes
• bake 24 minutes @ 180C fan forced
• cool on a rack for 30 - 45 minutes
• enjoy guilt free low cost bread.

See? It's an obscenely simple recipe which doesn't need a second rising so it's much faster to make and less troublesome than other methods. The artisan breadmakers and other hardcore bakers will be laughing themselves silly at this point, decrying it as an impure and imperfect recipe. It is. It's about convenience, better quality than can be had from the supermarket and a fraction of the cost.

So - on to the playing part!

A regular loaf of bread is a thing of simple beauty. A well formed dinner roll is rather appealing. A hand formed Kaiserbrot is a moment of joy, but once you step into the dark side of plaiting and more, you will not only feel a greater sense of satisfaction but will certainly get a lot more adulation, oohs and aaahs from those who are lucky enough to see and eat your bread.

Here's a quick list of some of the different loaf shapes that you can possibly try and I will show you a basic plait example at the end:

• Baguette - The famous and familiar French stick
• Baton - Like a short baguette
• Ficelle - Similar length to a baguette, but only half as thick (diameter)
• Bloomer - Diagonally slash-cut UK style loaf with an eccentric oval cross section
• Vienna - Much like a Bloomer but with less defined slash cuts or none at all
• Pullman - Pretty much what you get at the supermarket before it is cut - a rectangular, squared off loaf
• Cob - More or less a rounded, blobby shape but quite traditional and very popular for certain artisanal breads
• Boule - While it's the French word for "ball", it has a similar shape to the Cob
• Fougasse - Flat bread with deep slashes and analogous to the Foccacia
• Braided / Plaited - Think of a plait of hair and you've got in a yeasty, bready form. A personal favourite.
• Ring - Yep, just like the name implies: it's a ring.

You can make the dough into whatever shape you like.

All of the unusual shaped loaves you see at your local baker come down to one thing in common: reshaping the dough by various techniques before baking. It can be as simple as rolling the dough flat and then rolling it back up again to achieve the famous baguettes and batons or hand-forming a big ball to achieve a boule.

Have fun with it. After all, it is your daily bread.

Cheers!!