Peeta's District 12 Bread

Name: Peeta's District 12 Bread
Prep time: 1 h
Yield: 8
Cuisine: District 12
Ingredients: 3 cups bread flour (a mix with a little rye or whole wheat, District-12 style); 1 packet instant yeast; 1½ teaspoons salt; 1 tablespoon sugar or honey; 1 1/4 cups warm water; 2 tablespoons oil; Optional — a handful of raisins and nuts, as in the Mellark bakery's loaves

Serve when

Serve it warm from a hearth on a cold day — the loaf a baker's boy once burned on purpose so a starving girl could eat.

In the movie

Theatrical

~01:52:24 Long before the arena, Peeta Mellark burns two loaves of his family's bakery bread on purpose and takes the beating to toss them to a starving Katniss in the rain. It's the origin of everything between them — kindness measured in bread.

The bread Peeta throws Katniss is the film's quiet foundation stone: an act of mercy in a world engineered to make people cruel. In Panem, where the Capitol starves the districts on purpose, choosing to feed someone is a radical, dangerous kindness — and it's where the whole story really begins.

Ingredients

3 cups bread flour (a mix with a little rye or whole wheat, District-12 style)
1 packet instant yeast
1½ teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon sugar or honey
1 1/4 cups warm water
2 tablespoons oil
Optional — a handful of raisins and nuts, as in the Mellark bakery's loaves

Method

Mix the flour, yeast, salt, sugar, water, and oil into a rough dough, then knead until smooth and elastic.
Let it rise until doubled, about an hour. Fold in raisins and nuts now if using.
Shape into a round loaf and let it rise again on a floured tray.
Slash the top and bake in a hot (425°F) oven for 30–35 minutes, until deep golden and hollow-sounding when tapped on the bottom — a good dark crust is the point.
Cool, tear, and eat warm. A little char at the edge is, in this case, sentimental.