I can’t think of a more comforting thing to eat than a freshly baked rosemary plait. This bread is easy to make, but is one of the loveliest things to eat, warm from the oven, on a cold winter’s night.
Recipe (makes one large loaf)
1tsp yeast
500g strong white flour
3tbsp sugar
25g butter
2tbsp milk powder
2 and a half tbsp salt
6 tbsp rosemary leaves
300ml lukewarm water
One egg yolk, for the glaze, to be added shortly before baking
1. Place all the ingredients, in order, in your breadmachine on the dough setting. Or follow these instructions to make the dough.
2. Once the dough is ready, separate it into three sections of equal size. On a floured surface, roll the dough into long sausages about a foot long each.
3. Bring the three dough sausages together on a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper. Line them up parallel to one another, and plait them by joining them at one end, then lifting the left sausage across so it rests between the middle strand and the right hand strand. Then lift the strand on the right over the new middle strand so it rests between that and the new left hand strand. Repeat the plaiting until the end of the stands and join them by pinching them slightly at the end.
4. Leave to prove for half an hour in a warm place such as an airing cupboard. Then whip the egg yolk briskly with a fork before brushing it all over the loaf.
5. Bake at 220 degrees for twenty minutes to half an hour in the oven until golden brown. Eat while warm.
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Dee Sewell
Mmm that sounds lovely. Will have to give it ago. Great pics too
Thursday
I’ve been keen to try making my own bread absolutely from scratch even though I have an excellent breadmaker which consistently turfs out excellent loaves. Am just going through the process of second attempt at making a sourdough loaf (proving as I type) after the first attempt resulted in a rather pitiful-looking large flat pebble.
This recipe with the magic lines “place all the ingredients, in order, in your breadmachine” and “Bake at 220 degrees” gives the best of both worlds and I may well be turning to this if my sourdough loaf is anything less than the size of an inflated airbag.
F&F
Hi Thursday, glad you like the simplicity of the recipe! I don’t think something that makes you stressed out and has 35 different stages is truly as comforting as a simple recipe with good ingredients. Just made a second loaf of it to enjoy during the week.
F&F
p.s. I find that bread where the dough has been made in the breadmaker and then baked in the oven is the best: often the loaves I make in the breadmaker are a bit dull.
Thursday
Well, sourdough loaf is not a pebble but not exactly an airbag either. Anyway, this rosemary bread is an absolute must. If you like a slightly spicy granary bread, I have a breadmachine recipe that is superb. Do email if you’d like to give it a go.
sj
Rosemary bread sounds wondefuland I look forward to trying it: do you really need 2 and a half tablespoons of salt? My Panasonic breadmaker only calls for one and a half teaspoons for a 500 gm loaf.
F&F
Hi SJ, you can obviously tweak the salt content: I have increased it for this recipe because the salt works so well with the Rosemary and gives the bread a nice bite. I don’t tend to use salt much in my cooking, but for this I would recommend it.