"Richer than the bread?

The bread, although not the oldest recipe we know, yes that is the most exploited and there are more variations. Of our cuisine is the basis and, although the cheapest, is the king of our table.

The history of bread dates back thousands of years, my studies and my assumptions make me think that the first bread of the story was a mixture of crushed grains with water that was baked in ashes still warm. I hope that within a few years find another tablet that reveal where we are really beginning, but meanwhile we have to settle for short and confusing information we possess.
Fortunately we know the first evidence of production and consumption of bread. And these are Mesopotamian Cuneiform writing on tablets that can be dated around 1600 BC
The world's oldest kitchen already made bread, and it was undoubtedly the main commodity. Unleavened bread, unleavened bread ... how much we have advanced as far as bread is concerned, thanks to centuries ago someone came up with this way of eating cereal.

Bread Mesopotamian now we would like too, even the Middle Ages could have a place in our tables, but now we are not so far from that. The baking industry has advanced so that the bread is nearly ceasing to be bread. Preservatives, dyes, stabilizers, flavorings ... yes, all made with perhaps 3% of olive oil so that we seem healthy.
I now invite reflection ... when we eat a ham sandwich ingredient what we are consuming more, the bread or the ham? So, why invest so much money and effort in finding a good ham and yet the first bread we buy passes before us? I believe that thinking in this way is a bit absurd. Instead of taking the edge to a good bread for our children, buy a loaf of far less quality but that it comes without borders and, apparently, but does not benefit us, convince us it is more comfortable. Make a test, one of the books of Richard Bertinet learned the following: Take several slices of this bread borderless industrial estrújenlo hands, mix well and what will be something like a bread dough but not yet been baked. Do you really prefer that their children are fed with it only because it is easier to take a knife and cut the edges to a loaf of bread without additives? I think not. And here's where I come. Unfortunately every day is less common to find breads, pure. Large companies baking and pastry we are absorbing (in large part because we want to be absorbed) and we are feeding God knows what. Making bread is easy, requires a little time to ferment, but the development of the mass is very quickly that takes away time for other things. No doubt be glad to have tried.

Here is the recipe for the bread of the people. Pan fat and crispy crust and crumb alveoli consistent with almost imperceptible produced by yeast. I start with this bread because it is easy and gives very good results.

500 gr of bread flour
275 gr of water
25g fresh yeast
25 gr olive oil
10 g of salt

The first thing to do is put the flour in a bowl and break the yeast finger on it until we notice hardly hands. The yeast in bread and pastry recipes almost always be mixed with solids rather than liquids.
Then we'll make a flour volcano and one of the corners will not mix salt with the rest of the ingredients, so that no direct contact with yeast. Then add water and oil and using a baker scraper (or a large spoon) start to mix until the dough is smooth, smooth and supple. The next step will be to give a rounded shape to the mass leaving the top of our future bread smooth and without folds.
What I do when preparing this bread is to use a basket that I made myself. I put the basket inside a linen cloth (linen is the best fabric to cover the bread and the dough does not stick), echo enough flour on the inside and then I put the dough down with the nice part is ie, the face that had left smooth and without folds will not now because it will be attached to the basket. It took us more flour on the face "ugly" of the dough and cover with finished peaks without pressing linen cloth and let stand for 1 hour or hour and a half in a warm place. After that time the bread have doubled or nearly tripled in volume and is ready to be baked.
Preheat oven to 220 º C with a tray inside because it has to be hot when you put our bread dough. At the same time on a tray table or other smooth, without ribs we had a bit of hard wheat semolina (for the dough to slide well) and we put up our bread. Now is the time to make the cuts the bread with a sharp knife. When the oven is hot, we introduce the bread and leave 5 minutes at 220 º C and then lowered the temperature to 180 º C and leave 15 minutes or until we see that the bread has become a golden color and appetizing.

Maybe all the explanations make it seem a little tricky, but if you read as you go by what surely not cost you anything. Here I post the photo of the result. You'll discover that there are few better things to feel our freshly baked bread in our hands.