Courses & dish types
Bread recipes
Flour, water, salt, time.
Bread is four ingredients and a great deal of time, and the time is the ingredient people try to shorten. Flour, water, salt and a leaven; everything else is a variation. The two things that decide whether a loaf works are hydration — how much water the dough carries, which sets both how it handles and how open the crumb will be — and fermentation, which builds flavour and structure and cannot be hurried without cost. The recipes here give dough temperatures and visual cues rather than only clock times, because a kitchen at 18°C and one at 26°C are running different recipes.
16 recipes
Vatrushka
Yeasted buns pressed into a ring around a well of sweetened curd cheese, baked until the filling sets to a soft custard.
Spiced Fruit Tea Loaf
Dried fruit soaked overnight in strong tea, then stirred into a batter with no fat in it at all and baked slowly into a dark loaf.
Skillet Cornbread
A savoury all-cornmeal bread baked in a preheated cast-iron pan, so the batter hits hot fat and sets a crust as it lands.
Kulich
Tall enriched Easter bread coloured with saffron and studded with raisins, finished with a white glaze that runs down the sides.
Garlic Naan
A yoghurt-enriched yeasted dough cooked in a screaming hot pan and blistered under the grill, which stands in for a tandoor.
Sourdough Boule
A lean loaf raised on starter alone, folded rather than kneaded, retarded overnight and baked covered so it steams itself.
Soft Milk Rolls
A dough enriched with milk, butter and egg, baked as a pull-apart tray of rolls with a close crumb that stays soft for days.
Skillet Flatbreads
Soft stovetop flatbreads cooked in a dry pan in about two minutes each, ready in the time a pot of dal takes to simmer down.
Seeded Rye Loaf
A dense oval of dark rye and seeds, mixed rather than kneaded because rye forms almost no gluten to work with.
Pirozhki
Small yeasted buns filled with cabbage and egg, baked or fried, sized to be eaten out of the hand in two or three bites.
No-Knead Sourdough Focaccia
A slow sourdough focaccia fermented overnight in the fridge, dimpled deep so the pockets fill with olive oil and flaky salt.
Hand-Rolled Bagels
A stiff low-hydration dough rolled by hand, retarded overnight and boiled before baking, which is what sets the chewy glossy crust.
Everyday White Tin Loaf
A straight-dough sandwich loaf made with commercial yeast and no starter, baked in a tin so it slices square for toast.
Crumpets
A wet yeasted batter cooked in rings on a low griddle, with bicarbonate stirred in at the end so the holes open right through.
Buttermilk Soda Bread
A yeast-free loaf leavened with bicarbonate of soda and buttermilk, in the oven ten minutes after you start and cooling within the hour.
Borodinsky Rye Bread
Dark sourdough rye scalded with red rye malt, sweetened with molasses and finished with a crust of coriander seed.