Bread, the most magical of foods.
Oh bread. I love you so much. I especially love you when you're a little crusty and chewy, toasted a bit and dipped in garlic olive oil.
So I was overjoyed to find the easiest, most wonderful bread recipe on Pinterest.
I'm not one for fussy recipes. Much like my lack of patience and laziness with crafts, I really hate to babysit bread all day, making sure that it's punched down, or rising correctly, or spending exactly 10.4 hours in the refrigerator, then 2.3 hours in the warm kitchen...no.
Just no.
I had tried making artisan bread before. When it got really big several years ago, I attempted a recipe similar to this one - I think it had more ingredients, but the method was the same. I lost my patience, though, and I cracked the knob on my favorite cast iron pot, and I vowed to just buy bread from then on.
And then I came across this recipe. It was so easy! It had four ingredients, and it promised that I would spend no more than five minutes getting it ready! So I pinned it, and forgot about it for a few days. Then one night, around 1:30 in the morning, I thought "what the hell." We were having spaghetti for dinner the next night, and I figured a nice loaf of bread would be fantastic. So I got out of bed, went into the kitchen, and measured the following into a bowl:
3 cups of flour
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp yeast
1 1/2 cups water
It didn't have to be warm or hot water, just regular old water. No special flours, whatever yeast I had on hand, whatever kind of salt (I used kosher, because that's all I've got). Then I just mixed it up with a spoon until the flour was incorporated, covered it loosely with a lid, and left it alone on the counter.
Oh yeah, I also added a handful of shredded cheddar cheese. Because I had it on hand, and I figured it might be tasty (I was right!).
And then I went back to bed. The whole thing took about three minutes. Pete wasn't even aware that I'd gotten up. He only realized it the next morning when he found the bowl on the counter.
So the next day (or really, later that day), I floured my hands REALLY well (it's so sticky!), sprinkled some flour on top of the dough, and dumped it all out on the counter. I formed it into a loose ball on some floured parchment paper, then covered it with a floured kitchen towel (I also sometimes just put it back in the bowl). Are you catching all the "floured" stuff? You really need a lot of extra flour. Because it's super-duper sticky. Otherwise, you will get annoyed. Or, at least, I got annoyed. I also got what I like to call "dough fingers". But that's okay. That's what kitchen sinks and soap are for.
Also, you don't want to knead the flour in. We're not trying to add extra flour, even though the dough seems pretty wet. We're just trying to help with the stickiness.
So anyway, my dough was formed into a ball (in all, took another minute or so). I let it sit on the counter again for 2 hours. At the 1 1/2 hour point, I took out my covered cast iron pot and stuck it in the oven, and preheated the oven to 450. After half an hour, I CAREFULLY took the pot out, and just dumped the dough in. My pot is kind of large, so I sort of encouraged the dough to one side. Because it's so hot, it starts to bake the bread dough immediately, so once it's down, it stays in place.
That made no sense. Sorry. Let me try again.
What I'm trying to say is if I let the dough just plop along the whole bottom of the pan, it will spread out and I will get a loaf that's very wide, but only a couple of inches high. I like my bread taller than this, so I try to get it to fall on one side and I kind of hold it in place with a spoon until it sets a little - only about 5 seconds or so, it doesn't take long.
Better? Ooh, also, it will be very annoying to get the bread into the pot. It will be sticky again. I don't think it's ever NOT sticky. No matter what I do, it sticks to the parchment paper. It generally won't stick to the towel on top, though, which is nice. Anyway, it will stick to the parchment paper - don't worry about it. Scrape as much dough as you can into your pot - it will deflate a little, but it will puff back up while it's baking.
So I bake it, with the lid on, for 30 minutes. Then I go in, turn the temperature down to 400, and remove the lid. Bake it for an additional 15 minutes, then pull it out of the oven and (carefully!) take the bread out of the pan. It should look like this:
Oh, it is so magical! And your kitchen will smell like a bakery. And you will decide that even if it's a little annoying, what with all the stickiness and stuff, it's still super fast, and it's cheaper and tastier than buying it at the store. And everyone that eats it will be SO impressed! And doesn't that just make it worth it?
Oh, also, a note about the cheese: it was amazing. I cut the bread into thin slices, then toasted it with some fresh mozzarella and fresh cracked pepper. Best. Grilled. Cheese. EVER.
Extra note about storing the bread: Once you start slicing it, store it uncovered on the counter, with the sliced side down. It will keep your bread fresh much longer, while keeping the crust all nice and crusty.
So I was overjoyed to find the easiest, most wonderful bread recipe on Pinterest.
I'm not one for fussy recipes. Much like my lack of patience and laziness with crafts, I really hate to babysit bread all day, making sure that it's punched down, or rising correctly, or spending exactly 10.4 hours in the refrigerator, then 2.3 hours in the warm kitchen...no.
Just no.
I had tried making artisan bread before. When it got really big several years ago, I attempted a recipe similar to this one - I think it had more ingredients, but the method was the same. I lost my patience, though, and I cracked the knob on my favorite cast iron pot, and I vowed to just buy bread from then on.
And then I came across this recipe. It was so easy! It had four ingredients, and it promised that I would spend no more than five minutes getting it ready! So I pinned it, and forgot about it for a few days. Then one night, around 1:30 in the morning, I thought "what the hell." We were having spaghetti for dinner the next night, and I figured a nice loaf of bread would be fantastic. So I got out of bed, went into the kitchen, and measured the following into a bowl:
3 cups of flour
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp yeast
1 1/2 cups water
It didn't have to be warm or hot water, just regular old water. No special flours, whatever yeast I had on hand, whatever kind of salt (I used kosher, because that's all I've got). Then I just mixed it up with a spoon until the flour was incorporated, covered it loosely with a lid, and left it alone on the counter.
Oh yeah, I also added a handful of shredded cheddar cheese. Because I had it on hand, and I figured it might be tasty (I was right!).
And then I went back to bed. The whole thing took about three minutes. Pete wasn't even aware that I'd gotten up. He only realized it the next morning when he found the bowl on the counter.
So the next day (or really, later that day), I floured my hands REALLY well (it's so sticky!), sprinkled some flour on top of the dough, and dumped it all out on the counter. I formed it into a loose ball on some floured parchment paper, then covered it with a floured kitchen towel (I also sometimes just put it back in the bowl). Are you catching all the "floured" stuff? You really need a lot of extra flour. Because it's super-duper sticky. Otherwise, you will get annoyed. Or, at least, I got annoyed. I also got what I like to call "dough fingers". But that's okay. That's what kitchen sinks and soap are for.
Also, you don't want to knead the flour in. We're not trying to add extra flour, even though the dough seems pretty wet. We're just trying to help with the stickiness.
So anyway, my dough was formed into a ball (in all, took another minute or so). I let it sit on the counter again for 2 hours. At the 1 1/2 hour point, I took out my covered cast iron pot and stuck it in the oven, and preheated the oven to 450. After half an hour, I CAREFULLY took the pot out, and just dumped the dough in. My pot is kind of large, so I sort of encouraged the dough to one side. Because it's so hot, it starts to bake the bread dough immediately, so once it's down, it stays in place.
That made no sense. Sorry. Let me try again.
What I'm trying to say is if I let the dough just plop along the whole bottom of the pan, it will spread out and I will get a loaf that's very wide, but only a couple of inches high. I like my bread taller than this, so I try to get it to fall on one side and I kind of hold it in place with a spoon until it sets a little - only about 5 seconds or so, it doesn't take long.
Better? Ooh, also, it will be very annoying to get the bread into the pot. It will be sticky again. I don't think it's ever NOT sticky. No matter what I do, it sticks to the parchment paper. It generally won't stick to the towel on top, though, which is nice. Anyway, it will stick to the parchment paper - don't worry about it. Scrape as much dough as you can into your pot - it will deflate a little, but it will puff back up while it's baking.
So I bake it, with the lid on, for 30 minutes. Then I go in, turn the temperature down to 400, and remove the lid. Bake it for an additional 15 minutes, then pull it out of the oven and (carefully!) take the bread out of the pan. It should look like this:
Oh, it is so magical! And your kitchen will smell like a bakery. And you will decide that even if it's a little annoying, what with all the stickiness and stuff, it's still super fast, and it's cheaper and tastier than buying it at the store. And everyone that eats it will be SO impressed! And doesn't that just make it worth it?
Oh, also, a note about the cheese: it was amazing. I cut the bread into thin slices, then toasted it with some fresh mozzarella and fresh cracked pepper. Best. Grilled. Cheese. EVER.
Extra note about storing the bread: Once you start slicing it, store it uncovered on the counter, with the sliced side down. It will keep your bread fresh much longer, while keeping the crust all nice and crusty.