This recipe is one of my all time favourites. It's super easy and relatively quick, very forgiving, because you can swap flours to your liking and fun to make with kids. I love that its good for both my baby and my 3 year old and the fact that there are no funny ingredients, improvers or preservatives in them. Just pure goodness.
Makes 6 little buns (golf ball size) and 12 x 10 cm approx. bread sticks
Ingredients:
1 cup + 1/3 cup White spelt flour or High Grade flour or All Purpose flour
1/3 cup rye or whole meal (spelt or wheat)
1 heaped Tsp. instant yeast
1/2 tsp fine salt
2 Tbsp. Extra virgin olive oil
1 cup, plus a couple of extra tablespoons of warm water (you'll need more or less depending on the flour you are using, usually whole meal flours absorb more water so you might need to add one or two extra Tbsp.)
Method:
Combine the flour, yeast, and salt in a large bowl -or the bowl of a stand up mixer if you've got one-, stir in the warm water and oil, adding more water, tablespoon at a time, until you got a sticky but malleable dough. Tip out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for about 10 minutes until the dough is less sticky, smooth and flexible. Alternatively knead for 10 minutes in a stand up mixer with the dough hook attached.
Put into a bowl and leave to rise in a warm place covered with a tea towel for about 1 hour, or until it doubles in size.
After that divide the dough in half. Take one half and divide in 6 similar size balls, roll in a lightly floured surface until they have a nice shape and the tops look smooth.
Divide the other half in balls of about 20-25 grams (the size of a big cherry tomato) and using both hands roll out little logs, or snakes, of about 10 cm each.
Arrange buns and sticks onto a baking sheet, leaving some space between them as they will grow a little. Preheat the oven to 200C and leave the bread to rise again while your oven gets to temperature.
Bake together, the sticks will be ready in approx. 10 minutes, take them our carefully and leave buns to cook for another 5 minutes or until lightly browned.
Cool down before storing in a brown paper bag.