Bread in the oven at home

The flour should be sifted in advance and left on the table to warm up. We'll also prepare the salt and yeast. You can use both dry and fresh yeast as well.

We take warm water, but not hot. In the container with water, add salt, and then the yeast, and mix until everything dissolves. You need to do this quickly so that the salt doesn't react with the yeast.

Pour the liquid with yeast and salt into the bowl with flour. Using a spoon, mix everything until homogeneous.

You don’t need to knead the dough for a long time; it's enough just to combine everything into a uniform mass.

Tightly cover the bowl with plastic wrap, place the container in a warm place without drafts. Forget about the dough for two hours. How much time did you spend kneading the bread? I think, three or five minutes.

After two hours, the dough has increased two and a half times, which is quite enough.

We proceed to shape the bread. The working surface should be dusted with flour and all the dough placed on it. Simply stretch the dough into a rectangle shape using your hands. There's no need to use a rolling pin at all.

We need to fold the dough into an envelope. For this, take the edge of the dough with your right hand and slightly pull it to the side; the dough is pliable and stretches well. Fold the stretched edge over the main mass.

Now with your left hand, stretch the edge of the dough and fold it over the main mass, as shown in the photo.

Repeat it downwards, towards yourself.

Fold the top edge in the same way. In the end, we have formed an envelope out of the dough. If you plan to bake the bread in a square shape, this shaping will be enough; just tuck the sides of the dough underneath to make the loaf flat.

We will bake the bread in a round shape, so we need to shape the dough into a ball. To do this, we fold all the edges of the dough into a 'bag,' like khinkali, and then place the dough seam side down. In the end, we have a ball or a bun. During the shaping process, be sure to dust the table surface with flour. You should also dust your hands and the dough itself with flour to prevent sticking. The surface of the ball should be dusted with flour. It took us about five minutes to shape the loaf.

Transfer the future loaf to parchment paper, on which we will bake it. First, grease the paper with vegetable oil. Cover the dough with a bowl and let it rest on the table for thirty minutes. During this time, turn on the oven to heat it along with the baking form. Set it to 230° C.

After thirty minutes, pour three hundred milliliters of hot water into any metal mold or bowl and place it in the oven on the lower rack. We will bake the bread with steam.

Take out the heated mold from the oven, preferably cast iron. Together with the parchment paper, transfer the dough into the hot mold. Make random cuts on the bread with a sharp knife or a special blade.

Keep the oven at 230°C and bake the bread for forty-five to fifty minutes. During this time, the container with water should remain in the oven. Check for readiness using a skewer.

Our bread is ready; transfer it to a rack to cool and cover it with a cotton towel. Leave it for twenty to thirty minutes.

The fragrant homemade bread is ready. We spent a maximum of ten minutes preparing it, while the bread proofed and baked itself without us. In the end, we got incredibly delicious bread with a crispy crust.

I recommend making homemade bread using this simple recipe. Trust me, it will be your most cherished baked good.