It’s been a while since I posted a bread recipe so this is way overdue ^_^
I tried this recipe recently since I was testing out the Bakers’ flour from Premier Mills Ltd. I made a few changes on the ingredients from an original recipe and loved it. This herbal bread is especially great with a bowl of soup (I had mine with lentil soup ^_^). If you do try it please share the results below.
For those who may not have Bakers’ flour available; you can use All-purpose flour instead.
Ingredients:
- Bakers’ Flour – 2 + 3/4 cups
- Sugar – 2 tspn
- Salt – 1 tspn
- Instant dry yeast – 1 1/2 tspn
- Extra Virgin Oil – 3 Tbspn (+ 1 Tbspn for greasing your proofing bowl & bread)
- Luke-warm Water – 1 1/8 cup
- Dried Mixed herbs – 1 Tbspn
- Black Pepper (ground) – 1/4 tspn
- Dried Rosemary leaves – 1 Tbspn (for garnish)
Directions:
- In a small bowl; measure the lukewarm water and add the yeast and sugar. Leave the yeast for about 5 to 10 minutes to activate (especially if not using instant yeast).
- In a large bowl, measure the flour & salt and combine them. Measure the 3 tablespoons of extra virgin oil and pour into the dry ingredients.
- Add the yeast and water and start mixing the ingredients; you can use a mixer with dough hooks, however it’s more effective to use your hands. Knead the dough until it form into a ball.
- Add the black pepper and mixed herbs and knead until the dough forms a soft ball (if sticky, that’s alright).
Add the herbs into your dough and knead - Form the dough into a ball and place it into a greased bowl for the first proof. Make sure to roll the dough around in the bowl to ensure that it’s covered with oil as well, this will prevent the dough from forming a dry crust on its surface.
- Cover the dough with a damp kitchen cloth or cling wrap and place it in a warm place or in a make shift proofer.
Wait until the dough doubles in size; this can take from 40 minutes to an hour.
- When your dough is ready, punch it down and place it on a lightly floured working surface. Knead the dough for about ten minutes until soft and firm.
- Shape the dough into a round or oval shape; if you would like, you can make slits on the surface of the dough.
- Grease a baking sheet and place the dough onto it. Using a pastry brush, lightly apply some olive oil on the surface of the dough
and then sprinkle either dried rosemary leaves or mixed herbs to garnish the dough.
- Pre-heat your oven ten minutes before your dough is ready to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. After completing the second proof, place the loaf onto the middle rack of your oven.
- Bake the loaf of bread for 30 to 35 minutes until it has a brown surface on top. Remove the bread and let it cool for about 15 minutes on the pan. Transfer the loaf onto a cooling rack or a tray to cool completely. You can also enjoy the loaf of bread while warm if you prefer with some soup.
Bon Appetit!
P/S: If you want to just make a plain white bread; omit the herbs from the recipe. You can also use an egg wash to brush on top of the loaf instead of the olive oil.
If you don’t have olive oil nearby; use vegetable oil as a substitute.
Want to try out more bread recipes? Get our Simple Bread Recipes E-booklet – click here for more details on how to get it and recipes included.
Baking with Amari | Baking Classes 
Will try it sometime ……….. Bakers flour is available only in big bags ….. where can I get small packets ???
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Hi, yes it is only available in bags unfortunately, I’ve never seen it sold in less than 50kg bags, if I ever see it, will let you know
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Sure dear. But is there any other substitute which works well for this recipe.
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yes, you can use all purpose flour as well
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Hey Maureen, I’m in so happy I found your site. it’s opened my eyes to a lot. now my question is about the bakers flour.
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Hi Faith, thanks so much for reading – glad to hear it helped you out 🙂 What question about the bakers flour?
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What adjustments should I make if I want to use oat flour instead?
And how big a loaf does this make? You never mentioned that.
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Hi Ciku, apologies, since this was a home-baked bread, I didn’t measure the resulting bread weight. I promise I’ll do one next time with metric measures and the end product weight. As for the oat flour, since it has almost none, or for some absolutely no gluten in it. You might want to make sure you use a ration of oat meal to wheat flour: it’s good to experiment depending on the reason why you’re substituting (e.g. Health reasons) as well as what end results you’re looking for. You can start with 1/3 wheat flour and 2/3 oat flour and see how it will work out, you might have to add +1/2 of the yeast as well, but my advice would be to experiment twice or thrice to get the best taste.
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I usuallly use ZERO wheat flour when baking, in order to make gluten-free snacks because my tummy can’t handle gluten. Which is why I was so excited when I found this recipe cause it means I can finally start baking my own bread! So is gluten really important when baking bread? If so, can I increase the amount of yeast used to make up for it?
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Hi Ciku, gluten is important to get the types of results you want, especially for bread being sold commercially since the best outcome is soft and well risen bread. However, since your goal is different, and you have a problem with gluten, then your goal is different. So you can use different types of options of no gluten. However, this recipe actually contains bakers flour with has a very high gluten content, so I would not advice you to use it. Maybe other substitutes like oat flour, etc. You can add a small amount yeast than given in my recipe (e.g. 20% more), but don’t add too much since it will taste too much yeast, and might also affect your tummy as well (e.g. too much gas & heartburn).
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