Eight strand plaited bread

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius.

Place the flour, yeast, sugar, salt, oil and water into a large bowl.

Add the water a little at a time and mix your ingredients together, first with a fork and then with your hands until it all comes together.

Flour your hands and pat and push the dough together with all the remaining flour.

Knead the dough-simply push, pat, roll, fold and slap the dough around , over and over for 5-10 minutes until you have a silky and elastic dough.

First prove-flour the top of your dough. Put it into a bowl, cover with cling film and proving for about half an hour till it is doubled in size. However I will leave mine to rise for 2 weeks until my next lesson but as Elizabeth David says in her "English cookery and yeast book" that "The longer the dough has time to rise the better the dough will be at the end of the day".

When it has risen, take the cling film off and lightly punch the dough. If it has risen then the dough should fall back but gradually return to it's original height. (Not dissimilar to the motion of a plastic bag: if you drop it on the floor it should curl back up).

Now roll out the dough with a rolling pin and flour the surface you are working on. However do not put too much on the work surface as the dough can become too dry and if you put too little or nothing on the dough will be too sticky and stick to the work surface.

Now break up the spring of rosemary and sprinkle the small pieces around the flat, smooth, and even dough.

After that model your dough into a longish, circle and divide it into 8 equal pieces.