Bread is life and delicious bread means a great life! Homebaked bread is a rare delicacy not often found baking in the oven of a busy teacher mom except at on a few very rare ocassions. The #lockdownSA bread recipe was thrown together whilst I was completing an online assignment. My daughters had to listen carefully to me as I created a ‘no knead’ bread recipe from behind my laptop. God bless their souls, because I lost my train of thought a number of times and they had to repeat every ingredient more than once! And, like all good things it worked out perfectly, or should I say deliciously.
Twenty twenty is a year which we will forever remember with sadness and amazement at how a virus affected the entire globe. The world came to a collective standstill. We had to reimagine our existence, habits and lifestyles; and face the truth of our own mortality.
Soon after the first few cases of Covid-19 were recorded in South Africa, schools were closed to safeguard learners against becoming infected. This was a great relief for me as a teacher mom, it meant a longer holiday. That marked the first misconception about the entire Coronavirus lockdown in South Africa, what seemed to be an extended holiday rapidly escalated to disaster level. We had to promptly shift into survival gear and focus on ‘how, when and why’ movement outside of our homes was necessary. The freedom which we so easily take for granted was taken away for the sake of humanity – the virus eliminated everything which took our compassion, time and focus away from our actual reason for being; to live and let live. We were granted an opportunity to reconnect with our immediate family and forget about the hustle and bustle of work and school. But, with it came to an order to stop – shopping, socialising, working. This meant going back to basics like preparing more homemade meals, tapping into our creativity and baking our own bread. The knowledge that we cannot dash out and buy bread or milk, whenever we feel like means alternatives had to be found! The #lockdown bread recipe is easy, delicous and economical!
LOCKDOWN BREAD RECIPE
Ingredients
6 cups cake flour
1 teaspoon salt
3 teaspoons sugar
1 sachet dry yeast
1/4 cup oil
1 liter luke warm water
Method:
1. Dissolve the sugar and yeast in 1/2 cup of luke warm water and set aside to ferment.
2. Mix the flour and salt, and rub the oil into the flour mixture.
3. Make a hollow in the flour mixture and add the yeast mixture and one cup of lukewarm water.
4. Stir the the mixture very carefully using a wooden spoon.
5. Do NOT use your hands.
6. Continue stirring gently and add water gradually until all the flour is incorporated.
7. The dough be soft and easy to stir.
8. Cover and leave to rise in a warm spot until double in size.
9. Knock down gently with a wooden spoon, and let it rise again as before.
10. Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Prepare 2 bread pans.
11. Place the dough in the prepared pans and dust with flour. Leave it to rise until double in size.
12. Bake for 30+ minutes or until light brown and hollow when tapped.
13. Enjoy!
A photo of my finished bread on my whatsapp status was met by a number of requests to share the recipe! My only condition for sharing was, that they send me photos of their baked bread, it has since been shared with more friends and even on Facebook. What good is a recipe if it cannot be shared? Whilst we are on #lockdown, we might as well step up our level of humanity by sharing the good things we discover for and about ourselves.
If you happen to come across this post, hit like and share – it will be appreciated. Try the recipe out and post a photo of your bread in the comments!