Okay, I will stop torturing  Hamlet  right away. He doesn’t have to recite a twisted version of his famous monologue and instead can sit back, relax, and watch me write down a recipe. A recipe for bread. For simple and tasty bread. For really tasty bread. (Maybe this would even have helped Hamlet to make some decisions?)

I made the first version of this bread with yeast. A couple of days later I had to feed my sourdough starter, so I made this recipe again using yeast and some leftover starter. You can decide what you like better. For this recipe I used metric measurements and fresh yeast. It is adapted from the great recipe for white dough by Richard Bertinet (from the fantastic book Dough, which I highly recommend. The recipes are very easy, with only a couple of ingredients [flour, salt, yeast, water] and they are suitable for beginner bread bakers as well as for people who bake bread on a daily basis.)

Garlic Parsley Bread (with yeast), makes one small loaf

250 g strong bread flour
175 ml water
5 g fresh baker’s yeast, crumbled
5 g salt
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
10 g fresh parsley, chopped

Crumble yeast into flour, add water and salt and knead dough until everything is well combined. Transfer dough to a lightly floured working surface and knead for approx. ten minutes or until the dough is soft and not sticky anymore. Knead in garlic and parsley.

Transfer to a bowl, cover with a damp kitchen towel, and let rest in a warm place for 1-1 1/5 hours or until dough has doubled in size.

Preheat oven to 480°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Knead the dough for one more minute and shape into a loaf. Transfer to baking sheet, cover with kitchen towel and let rise for another hour. Transfer to oven and bake for 10 minutes. Reduce temperature to 420°C. Bake for another ten minutes. Reduce temperature again, this time to 400°C and bake for 15-20 minutes until the bread sounds  hollow when you tap the bottom. Let cool completely on a rack. Enjoy with your favourite margarine or with some hot soup.

Garlic Parsley Bread (with yeast and sourdough)

200 g whole wheat flour
100 g sourdough starter
120 – 150ml water (depending on how liquid your starter is)
5 g fresh baker’s yeast
5 g salt
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
10 g parsley, chopped

Instructions as above.

This bread was submitted to yeastspotting.

And here are some more breads I made from the book Dough:

Fougasse. Bring this to a party. Everybody will remember your name.

These bread rolls were made with the rye dough recipe from Dough and then shaped into these rectangular rolls, a very popular shape for rye rolls in Germany.