WHOLE WHEAT BREAD

Making one medium loaf

1 tsp yeast

1 cup lukewarm water

1 tbsp sugar (brown or white) 1 tsp honey

1 and 1/4 cup wholewheat flour 1 and 1/4 cup all-purpose Flour 2 tbsp milk powder (optional) 2 tbsp + 1/2 tsp melted ghee/ olive oil (divided)

1 tsp salt

2 teaspoons poppy seed/ sesame seed to sprinkle on top.

Dissolve yeast, sugar, honey in lukewarm water, stir and leave for about 10 minutes. In a large wide bowl mix the two flours, salt and milk powder (if using). Rub in 2 tbsp ghee or olive oil. Add yeast mixture to flour and knead to form soft dough. If necessary add two tablespoon more water while kneading. Knead for five minutes. Form a ball, rub some ghee/ olive oil all over the ball and leave it in

Child) there’s no spur to action. When I went home for vacations from college, either my mother had a larderful of golden bread in all sorts of shapes — braids, cloverleafs, knots, baguettes — so much, in fact, that she bought a freezer just to keep it, and to have to bake just once a month; or there was Sharma Bakery. Near my parents’ house it was, with three or four interchangeable-looking men, all presumably Sharma, all from Kangra. There was a waist-high counter stacked with fat cylindrical glass jars with glass stoppers, full of “cookies” (biscuits with red jam centres), biscuits with fake chocolate marbling, macaroons, tart shells, vol au vents that the local ladies filled with mushrooms-in-white-sauce for cocktail the bowl loosely covered with a kitchen cloth for 90 minutes. The dough will rise and spread.

Meanwhile, grease a 9X5 baking (bread) pan. After around 90 minutes, punch it down. It will deflate completely. Roll it into a long cylinder and put it in the pan. Let it rise for another 30-45 minutes in the tin. Around 10 minutes before baking, preheat the oven to around 180 degrees Celsius. Dough will have risen. Rub a little olive oil over the top and sprinkle poppy/ sesame seeds on top. Bake 45 minutes. Top of loaf should be a nice dark golden brown. Remove from oven. Cool in the pan for a few minutes, then upturn onto a plate. Then upturn plate onto a wire rack with a plate under it to catch the seeds that fall off.

Slice with a sharp, non-serrated knife. Best eaten warm with cold butter.