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A couple of weeks ago I was contacted to see if I would like to check out the Baking Mad website and try out one of their recipes. I was very pleasantly surprised when I looked at the site, many of the recipes looked nice and simple which is my kind of baking! The site has recipes for a huge range of things: cakes, cookies, muffins, scones etc. After looking through the recipes I thought I would try one of the bread recipes.

I've been wanting to try my hand at making 'proper' bread with yeast for sometime but was a bit scared to try it! Something about baking with yeast scared me and I always worried that my bread wouldn't rise. The recipes on Baking Mad looked pretty straight forward, even if I wanted to use vegan substitutions. I decided to try this recipe for light whole meal bread. As usual I did make some slight alterations to the recipe to suit my tastes. I also ended up having to do some emergency experimentation when I realised that I'd bought the wrong yeast!

Basic wholemeal loaf (vegan) adapted from Light Wholemeal Bread Recipe Baking Mad.com

• 500g of strong wholemeal bread flour
• 1.5 tsp of salt
• 3 tbsp of sunflower oil
• 1 tbsp of dried yeast
• 150 ml warm water
• 2 tbsp of sweet freedom sweetener (or honey or agave) divided
• 75ml of warm water

Begin by activating the yeast. In a jug combine 150mls of warm water (I did 50mls of hot water from the kettle and 100mls of cold water) with the dried yeast and 1 tbsp of your liquid sweetener. Put to one side in a warm place until the surface is covered in foam (about 10 – 15 minutes). While the yeast is activating combine your flour and salt in a bowl. When the yeast is ready, mix it into the flour with the oil, additional tbsp of sweetener and more warm water as required to form a soft dough. Kneed the bread on a floured surface for 10 minutes stretching the dough out until its nice and smooth. Shape the dough as required, I made about 1/3 into two rolls and the rest I put into a greased loaf tin. Leave somewhere warm until the dough has doubled in size (I used my dehydrator for this). Preheat your oven to 220 gas mark 7, then just before you put the bread in turn it down to 200 or gas mark 6. Bake the bread for 25 – 30 minutes, it should be golden brown and sound hollow when you knock it on the bottom. Leave to cool on a rack or enjoy warm. 

I was amazed with how well this turned out! The bread was just delicious, James enjoyed it too. This is a really good recipe if your a bit nervous about using yeast, all you need is somewhere warm for it to rise. We don’t have an airing cupboard so the dehydrator was perfect and even has a bread rise setting.

I might make some more of these for Easter weekend, and how that I’m more confident I might even try out making some veganised hot cross buns!

Have you baked your own bread before? Anyone else nervous of baking with yeast?

What recipes from the Baking Mad site would you fancy trying out?