In these times of financial crisis, many of us are making cutbacks. Maybe we used to go to the local bakery for their fresh baked loaves of bread... and now we're eating the cheap stuff from the local supermarket.
But one Amsterdam bakery has a solution: bake your own "recession bread".
Fred Tiggelman - one of the owners of Hartog's bakery - explains that they always had a bread baking course, but when he heard about the financial crisis, he got the idea to make a "crisis baking" course.
But is it actually cheaper to make your own bread than to buy the cheap stuff from the grocery store? That depends on where you buy the ingredients... and where you buy the bread. We calculated that you could bake a cheap loaf of bread at home for about 76 cents - that's not counting labour - and you could buy a cheap loaf at the supermarket for 50 cents.
So the supermarket wins on cost... but what about taste? And the "therapeutic" nature of working the dough? And the comfort in knowing exactly what's in your bread? Not to mention the satisfaction of making simple ingredients into something more... and the "warm fuzzies" from sharing the fruits of your labour with friends and family.
So the calculation has to include more than money.
And maybe that's the real reason to try your own hand at making your own "recession bread".
If you're interested, the Hartog's wholegrain bread recipe is below. Here is a link to the recipe and baking tips section of Hartog's bakery (in Dutch) and you can find out more about the course here.
Enjoy!
The ideal Hartog's bread recipe:
Ingredients:
* 500 g Hartog's wholegrain flour
* 10 g salt
* 20 g yeast
* 3 dl lukewarm water (20°C)
* sunflower or olive oil to grease baking pan
* bread pan
Directions:
Dissolve the yeast in the water.
Put the flour in a bowl (or pour in a pile on a flat board), make an indentation in the middle, and pour in the yeast-water mixture.
Combine the ingredients until there is no dry flour remaining.
Add the salt.
Knead the dough well and add water as necessary - 1 to 1.5 dl at a time.
Cover the dough with a damp kitchen towel and leave to rise.
When the dough has risen about 1/3 in volume, knead it again and let it rise again for 30 minutes.
Punch the dough down until it is flat, then roll it into a bread-shape and put it into the pre-greased bread pan.
Let the bread rise one last time until it is as high as the rim of the pan.
Bake for 35 minutes at 220°C in a pre-warmed oven.
Tips:
* Did your bread not rise enough? Try using more water and kneading the dough for a longer period of time.
* Is your bread too dark, not fully cooked, or too light? Knead the dough for a longer period of time and/or increase/decrease the temperature of your oven.
* Bread stays fresh longer if you keep it un-sliced and in a paper bag.
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