When Richard Bertinet was a boy in Vannes, Brittany, his daily task was to fetch the bread from the local boulangerie. "In France we buy bread every day, and in our family you could never, ever eat a meal without it. When the door of the shop was left ajar I could see the baker in the back, working hard and looking dog-tired, but when he brought a fresh batch of hot, crusty baguettes through to the shop and everyone in the queue breathed in the delicious smell of fresh bread, you could see how proud he felt."
Bertinet says he was "never going to be the brightest at school" and, when asked at 13 what job he wanted to do, "The word baker just came into my head." For his pre-apprenticeship he was supposed to alternate two weeks at school and two weeks at the boulangerie. "But right from the start I was doing much more, and I was working every weekend," he says. "Later on it was hard working all hours when friends were out with girls."
By 17 he was in charge of running the ovens, doing the job of a much older man. All those hours, and a year working in a Parisian bakery, meant that bread-making became instinctive. "On the way to work in the morning you learn a lot from sensing the atmosphere, noticing that it's a bit colder, that the dough is going to be slow; we'll close the door."
One of his greatest pleasures, apart from eating bread, is seeing the joy that making a loaf brings to his students. The boy who disliked school now gets a buzz from teaching, and from researching historic bread-making techniques.
And for him the quality of the dough is paramount: "Make good dough and you'll get good bread," he says. "And making a fantastic loaf, completely by hand, from just flour, water, salt and yeast – that's magical."
Apricot & oat bread
Makes four small or two large loaves
I like this for breakfast – it's like muesli in bread form. It's also good toasted with cheese.
300g (10½oz) strong wholemeal flour
200g (7oz) strong white flour
10g (¼oz) yeast (fresh if possible)
10g (¼oz) salt
200g (7oz) dried apricots, roughly chopped
80g (3oz) oats
Mix the two flours and rub in the yeast, using your fingertips as if making a crumble. Add the salt and 350ml (12fl oz) water. Hold the bowl with one hand and mix the ingredients with the other for two to three minutes, until the dough starts to form.
Lift the dough on to an unfloured work surface (it will be like thick, sticky porridge). Slide your fingers underneath it like a pair of forks, with your thumbs on top, swing it upwards and then slap it back down, away from you, on to your work surface (it will almost be too sticky to lift at this point). Stretch the front of the dough towards you, then lift it back over itself in an arc (to trap the air), still stretching it forwards and sideways and tucking it in around the edges. Keep on working it until it comes cleanly away from the work surface, begins to look silky and feels smooth, firm but wobbly and responsive. Once you get used to this technique, it should only take about five minutes. Then work in the apricots by hand until they are distributed evenly.
Form the dough into a ball, place in a lightly floured bowl, cover with a tea towel and rest for an hour. Turn the dough out on to a lightly floured surface and divide into two or four pieces, depending on the size of loaf required. Shape into balls, cover with a tea towel, and leave to rest for 10 minutes.
Mould each ball into a loaf. Place the oats on a plate. Brush the top and side of each loaf with a little water then roll in the oats until coated generously. Place the loaves on a baking-tray lined with a lightly floured tea towel, pleated in between the loaves so they don't touch as they rise. With a sharp knife make a few diagonal cuts along the top of each loaf to a depth of at least 0.5cm (¼in), then leave to prove for an hour or until the loaves have nearly doubled in volume. Preheat the oven to 250°C/500°F or your oven's hottest setting and place a baking-tray in there.
Open the oven door and mist inside with a water spray, then quickly slide the loaves on to the baking-tray and close the door. Lower the heat to 220°C/425°F/gas mark 7 and bake for 15 minutes for small loaves, about 25 minutes for large. Once baked, the loaves should sound hollow when tapped.
Taken from "Dough" by Richard Bertinet (Kyle Books, £16.99)
