Olive's bread

I put about 2 tsp sugar in a large bowl, pour on about 1 cup warm water and dissolve the sugar, then sprinkle over 2 tsp dried yeast granules bought at most supermarkets. Cover with teatowel to keep the warmth in and leave about 15 to 20 mins to get frothy.

Pour in another 1/4 to 1/2 cup warm water and mix in 3 cups flour with 2 more tsp sugar and 1 to 1 and 1/2 tsp salt. Mix well. Then add more flour until it is too hard to mix any more. Pour into well-greased loaf tin. Cover with damp teatowel and stand it in warm place until risen to twice size. It does not matter if you do not put it in a warm place, it will simply take longer to rise, so you go and do something else. When risen turn oven on to very hot setting. When oven is hot put bread in and turn setting back to 360F or 180C and bake about 25 or 30 minutes.

There are a lot of 'about' in this recipe as it is something you learn by doing it and seeing how it turns out then change it for next time. So it is a craft you learn by experience. You can experiment with different types of flour, wholemeal, white, rye, rice, corn. Wholemeal is heavy so I usually put 1/3 white with it to lighten it. I can buy ground linseed at Bin Inn so I put that in as it is good for us. I do not know what is available to you.

You could do the same recipe but with mostly white flour, add 2 tsp mixed spice, 2 Tb sugar, 1 Tb oil and 1 beaten egg and big handful of sultanas and it would be a fruit loaf. Or you could pull lumps off to roll into buns for Hot Cross buns.

Whichever way you do it, it tastes nice unless you forget the salt, or bake it till it is burned. If it burns you cut off the burned parts and soak it in milk with beaten egg, put sultanas in it and bake it for bread pudding.