Jan Braai's Pot Brood

Total Time: 2 Hours

Prep Time: 1 Hour

Cook Time: 1 Hour

Servings: 2-4 People

Suitable For: For the bread lovers

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Nothing beats a freshly baked pot brood, also known as braai bread, with loads of butter that melts in. Very simple and easy to make it just takes time and consistent heat, Jan Braai does it best.

Ingredients

1 kg white bread four (or cake flour if that is what’s on hand)

10 g instant yeast (Instant yeast comes in 10 g packets, specifically done that way to make it easy, as you need 10 g for every 1 kg of four. That coincidently is also why this recipe calls for 1 kg of four and 10 g of yeast.)

1 tot sugar

½ tot salt

Lukewarm water in a jug (you’ll need roughly just more than 2 cups of water)

2 tots of olive oil

Butter

Instructions

Sift the flour into a bowl that is at least three times bigger than 1 kg of flour, but preferably even bigger. If you are in the middle of the bush and do not have a sieve on hand then skip the sifting part and just chuck the flour into a big enough bowl.
Add the yeast and sugar to the flour (do not add the salt yet) and mix thoroughly with clean hands.
Add the salt and toss it around. (Adding salt directly onto yeast will kill the yeast.)
Add the lukewarm water bit by bit and knead the dough continuously. When there is no dry four left, you’ve added enough water. For 1 kg of flour you will probably use about 2½ cups of water.
Once you have enough water in there, add the 2 tots of olive oil.
Knead the dough properly for about 10 minutes until none of it sticks to your fingers anymore and it forms one big pliable piece. If this simply never happens, you added too much water. Add more flour to fix it.
Cover the bowl with a damp kitchen towel or cling wrap and place it in a warm area for 10 minutes. During this time you need to smear the inside of the pot and the bottom of the lid really well with butter or nonstick cooking spray.
Remove the kitchen towel or cling wrap and knead the dough again for a minute or two. Now put the dough into the pot. There needs to be space for the bread to rise when the lid is on. If there isn’t enough space, the pot is too small. Remove some of the dough and bake roosterkoek with it.
Place the pot in a warm area and let the bread rise in the pot for 30 minutes.
Now you need to bake the pot bread in even heat for about 1 hour. Even heat means all parts of the pot, and bread, need to be equally exposed to the heat. If there is a very hot fire nearby you need to turn the pot regularly. Place the pot on the coals and also place the coals on the lid. As the coals below or on top of the pot start to cool off, replace them with new ones. Never add too much heat, or it will burn. I usually take it quite easy on the heat when baking pot bread for fear of burning the thing but it’s entirely possible your bread will be ready in 40 minutes; you will have to check.
A pot of bread is ready when it sounds hollow when you tap on it (you’ll need to remove the lid to do this). Then insert the blade of a pocket knife into it as the final test. If the blade comes out clean the pot bread is ready. Sometimes you burn a pot of bread. It’s just one of those unfortunate facts of life. If you don’t, give yourself a pat on the back. If you do, just cut away the burnt part and adjust your technique.