Before you put your shaped dough into a loaf pan, you must prepare the loaf pan otherwise the baked loaf will be difficult to get out – it may even stick the the inside of the pan.
Start by pouring a small amount of olive oil into the loaf pan – about the size of a US quarter (British 10p piece). Using a piece of kitchen paper, spread the olive oil so that all sides of the pan are barely covered with a thin film of oil.
Then, sprinkle in about a tablespoon of flour – ideally, the same flour as you are using in your recipe – but it doesn’t really matter – all-purpose (plain) flour is fine.
Now, pat/tilt the pan so that the flour sticks to all sides of the greased pan. The picture to the left shows the kind of thing you’re after.
When the loaf is baked, tilt the pan (holding with oven gloves
I don’t generally wash the loaf pan every time – I just brush out the crumbs and store the loaf pan in the cold oven until the next time.
