








If you have never made bread before then this should be your go-to recipe. This easy to make bloomer bread loaf is ever so simple. You mix it by hand, it is easily kneaded and doesn’t require a bread tin so what’s your excuse? Try it today and get that awesome fresh baking bread smell going in your kitchen.
Make it enough times following the pictures below and you won’t even need this recipe again. You can make it all from memory! Don’t believe me? Make it every weekend for 3 weeks and by week 4 you will just be reaching for the ingredients and getting on with it.
This bloomer loaf gets its name from the way the dough expands. Before and then during baking, it “blooms” to give its characteristic shape with its four diagonal slashes on the top.
It’s not a complicated or hard bread to make. It is not a wet dough that is difficult to handle. You don’t need a mixer or even bread tin. And it gets its lovely texture and taste from the double rising process and its crusty surface. And like all freshly baking bread, it smells amazing in the oven!
Serve with fresh cheese, ham or some cherry tomatoes. Or toast it up for poached egg on toast with mashed avocado, your options are endless. Easy to make bloomer bread is your go-to bread!
Easy to make Bloomer Bread Loaf
Ingredients
- 500 g Strong white bread flour
- 7 g Fast action dried yeast (usually one sachet of fast action bread yeast)
- 10 g Salt
- 320 ml Water
- 40 ml Olive oil (I use extra virgin in this recipe)
Instructions
- Add your bread flour into a large bowl, and then add the yeast to one side and the salt to the other side.
- Make a well in the centre and pour in the olive oil.
- Slowly pour in the water and start to mix the ingredients with your hand and bring them all together. Gather all the flour up and keep adding the water bit by bit and keep mixing.
- Your dough should be soft and a little sticky, but not soggy and wet, so you may not need to use all of your water.
- Splash some oil onto your work surface run your fingers over it and tip the dough ball out onto the surface ready for kneading.
- Knead firmly for 10 minutes pushing the palms of your hands into the dough and folding the dough over and repeating.
- Oil a bowl with your fingers or some kitchen roll, place the dough into the bowl, cover with cling film and leave for 2 hours or until tripled in size.
- Tip the dough onto a lightly floured surface and "knock back" by pushing the air out with your knuckles and then folding the dough over and repeating a couple of times.
- Shape into the classic bloomer shape, then place onto a lightly floured baking sheet on top of a baking tray.
- Place the whole tray into a plastic bag, (use a tall sauce bottle to stop the bag touching the dough) and leave for another hour for its second rise.
- With a very sharp knife cut 4 diagonal slashes across the surface of the dough so it can expand when baking.
- Put in a preheated oven at 220°C for 25 minutes and then turn down to 200°C for another 10 minutes.
Notes
Easy to make bloomer bread method in pictures

Gather your ingredients together, flour, water, salt, oil and yeast

Put flour in a large bowl and put salt on one side and the yeast on the other

Make a well in the centre and pour in the olive oil

Slowly start to pour the water into the bowl and begin mixing with your other hand

Add more water and mix with your hand all the ingredients together until it clumps together

When the dough is clumped together and is slightly sticky it's ready to knead

Knead the dough on a surface coated with a drizzle of oil to stop it sticking

Firmly knead with the palms of your hands for 10 minutes

Use some olive oil to oil the bowl using a kitchen towel

Place the kneaded ball of dough in the oiled bowl

Cover the bowl with cling film and leave for at least an hour at room temperature to double in size

Tip the dough out onto a floured work surface

Knock back the dough - Push the air out with your knuckles a couple of times and fold over

Shape into the bloomer shape and place on a floured baking sheet on a baking tray

Put the whole tray into a large plastic bag, the sauce bottle keeps the plastic from touching the bread

After 30 mins take out of the bag the dough will have risen again ready to bake

With a very sharp knife make 4 slashes across the dough

Bake at 200c for 25 mins and then turn down to 180c for another 10 mins

Let the loaf cool on a wire rack before slicing

Crusty on the outside, soft on the inside.