It's holiday time and I though I'd revise the Ubuntu bread recipe.

I originally posted the recipe for Ubuntu bread on the Ubuntuforums cookbook thread in 2005. I was pleased when the recipe made its way into the official Ubuntu book.

Since then, I have experimented and learned a few new things about breads. I think the original recipe needs to be a little easier to make.

I have updated the recipe and improved upon the technique. The original recipe calls for a stiff dough that results in a very nice shape, but it is requires a lot of work to make and to shape. It also requires a little experimentation to obtain optimal cooking temperature and time. If you cook it too fast, you end up with a burned crust and an uncooked inside. If you cook it too slowly, you end up with a dry bread.

This dough is wetter and results in a dough that doesn't hold its shape as well, but it results in a dough that is much easier to handle and cook. I prefer the taste, too. It's chewier.

This dough is made without any kneading. So anybody can make it with ease. No special kitchen equipment is needed.

You may also make and shape the dough on one day and put it into the refrigerator. You can keep it there for up to three days before you bake it. Delaying the rising like this will improve the flavor of the bread and prolong the shelf life of the finished product. This may sound more complicated, but it is actually a lot easier to do. You can do most of the work right now and put it in the fridge until about three hours before you want to eat the bread.

Please make some and share it with others!

Ingredients:

1 teaspoon of yeast

1 cup of warm water.

2 eggs

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup vegetable oil

2 teaspoons salt (I use sea salt)

4 cups unbleached flour (I use Canadian all-purpose flour which contains high quality protein. U.S. all-purpose flour has less protein, so perhaps U.S. residents should use a mixture of all-purpose and bread flour)

Optional: 2 teaspoons of honey

Method:

Put the yeast into the warm water. Mix slightly and let it sit while you gather the other ingredients. Crack one egg into a bowl. Whisk it together. Remove about two tablespoons of it to a small bowl. Cover the small bowl and store it in the refrigerator. This will be used to brush the bread after it has risen, before it is baked and creates the shiny crust.

Crack the other egg into the bowl and add all the other ingredients. Mix with a spoon until everything is incorporated. It will resemble a shaggy ball of dough that falls apart. Wet your hands so that the dough doesn't stick and squeeze the dough together as if making a snowball. Press your fingers into the center of the ball and fold the dough over itself. You want to spread the dry dough around the wet dough so that it all becomes uniform. This step should take about one minute. It's fine if you do it for longer, but there is no need to. Any dry spots will disappear during the stretching-and-folding.

Let the rough ball of dough rest in a covered bowl in a warm area for 45 minutes. For example, with the oven heat off, the oven light should provide a little bit of warmth to keep the temperature high enough to stimulate the yeast activity.

After 45 minutes, dust the surface of your counter with a little flour and plop the ball of dough onto it. With lightly floured hands, press your fingers into the center of the dough to flatten it out. Don't roll it out since this will remove the gas bubbles. Just use your fingertips. Look for dry spots. Press down on a dry spot to gently massage it down into the counter top. Don't fuss over it, just break it up a little. It will go away.

Pull the dough into a rectangle. Stretch the bottom third of the rectangle down and then up and over the middle part. Stretch the top part up and then down and over the middle. Rotate the dough and repeat the same maneuver. This stretch-and-fold gently develops the gluten which will give your bread a fluffy, chewy texture.

Tuck the sides of the dough underneath to form a ball and put the dough back in the warm place to rise for another 45 minutes. Do a total of three stretch-and-folds with a 45 minute rising period in between (so do two more after the one you just did) and massage out any dry spots. After the third stretch-and-fold, the dough should be soft and fluffy with no more dry spots. It's ready to shape into the Ubuntu circle. Tuck it into a ball and let it sit for 5 minutes.

Roll the dough out into a long piece and cut it into three equal parts. Rub a small drop of oil on each piece to make the dough a little sticky and easy to roll out. Roll each piece out until it's less than 1 inch thick (about 36 inches or 90 cm long).

Dust each rope with flour as you finish rolling it out so that it doesn't stick to the counter. It's a lot easier to braid dusted dough. Braid the three ropes together.

Cut a few centimeters from each end to provide a perfectly shaped braid on both ends. Rub a drop of water on the three tips of one end. Connect the tips from the other end to the humid tips. Try your best to maintain a nice braid. Place the braid onto an oiled cookie sheet and adjust it's shape to be perfectly circular. Stretch out the center to increase the size of the hole in the middle. Take the two end pieces that you cut off and roll them into one long rope; you can wet your hands and squeeze to get them to stick together.

Cut into three ropes and taper one end on each. Roll up each one like a swirl. Place on top of the circle to complete the Ubuntu pattern - use one of them to cover up the spot where the two ends were joined (heh heh).

Alternatively, make a Kubuntu shape. Create three balls with the cut off dough. Flatten the balls into disks. Flatten the edge of the disks more than the middle. Use a kitchen tool to make a cut in the center of the dough. Rotate the disk and make another cut across the first. Make two more cuts. Flip the disk inside-out and free up the points of the gears. Do the same with the other two balls.

Cover with plastic wrap. If you want to make the bread on the same day, let it rise for an hour. If you want to bake the bread another day put it in the fridge immediately - you can delay it like this for up to three days. It will rise a bit for the first few hours in the fridge. 90 minutes before you will want to bake the bread, take it out of the fridge and put it in a warm place.

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Mix a tablespoon of water with the beaten egg you put aside. Just before putting the bread into the oven, use a brush to coat the dough with the egg mixture. Then bake for 35 minutes (30 to 40 minutes). I suggest you cook it on two cookie sheets doubled up (or use a silicone mat) since the oil and sugar will burn fairly quickly.

Let it cool for at least 45 minutes before eating. Resist the temptation to eat it sooner! The bread has not finished baking as a lot of chemical reactions are still happening and the flavor is not at its best until its cooled.

Photos:

Shaggy ball of dough:

Stretch and fold:

The finished dough is very smooth.

Cut the ends off and use them to make the ornaments.

Ubuntu swirls:

Or Kubuntu gears:

Made for sharing!