Bread

Homemade Bread

Homemade bread tastes better.

This is a bit complicated for someone who has never done it before, but once you get the hang of it, you can eyeball the whole thing. My recipe is an amalgam of Jim Leahy’s no-knead and a traditional french baguette preparation. I tried to minimize the amount of work while maximizing crust and crumb structure.

Poolish. Don’t be afraid. It’s just one cup of flour, one cup of water and a tablespoon of instant yeast. You let this sit, covered, for at least 20 hours. This will provide a strong rise and more importantly, amazing flavor. Jim Leahy’s no-knead bread is basically a big pile of poolish, and it is bread-crack.

3 cups flour, 1 and 3/4 cups water and all of the poolish in a bowl. Should be a gloppy mess- stir once and let it sit for 15 minutes.

Add salt. A tablespoon should do it. Salt inhibits rise but is necessary for flavor so I let everything sit together before I incorporate.

3 hours of rest. Bread is waiting. Seriously, no cheating.

10 minutes of kneading. I use a kitchen-aid because I like extremely wet dough. It’s almost a stir. You will incorporate more flour at this stage, just enough to bring this out of “gloppy mess” stage but not enough to pull off of the side of a bowl.

Another hour of rest. Bread is waiting…

At this point if you want to do 3 rounds of long-pulls (picking up the dough mass, letting it stretch out and then flop back down to lengthen the gluten) go ahead. I’m lazy.

Turn it onto a heavily floured surface and fold, 3 or 4 times until you can handle it without it attaching to your hands. Cut into two, put one blob aside. Form the general shape of what you want to make, sprinkle the top with flour, and let it rest another hour. During this hour you will heat an oven to 450 with a pan of water at the bottom. Or, if you want to go Leahy- style, place a heavy ceramic pot with lid in the oven. I prefer to cook bread on a cast iron skillet.

Once the oven is hot, flop the bread onto a pre-heated cast iron skillet, pizza stone, or a baking pan if you have nothing else. Cook for 40 minutes until the crust is dark brown and delicious.

Let it rest for 10 minutes, and enjoy.

5 comments
  1. Lucy says: June 2, 20096:57 pm

    What a gorgeous loaf!

  2. David says: June 3, 20092:58 pm

    Excellent posts so far. I just bookmarked your blog, keep ’em coming!

  3. admin says: June 3, 20099:36 pm

    Thanks! Will do!

  4. Trifecta Mussels says: June 9, 20099:34 am

    […] with a simple side salad and Homemade Bread. This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink. Post a comment or leave a […]

  5. Jared says: September 29, 200910:28 pm

    Man, the comments here just don’t do this thing justice. First off – EXCELLENT instructions. The steps are perfectly laid out. And the bread… oh my goodness, when you say bread-crack you aren’t lying. I’ve honestly made over 20 loaves of this stuff, and no batch (of usually 2-4 loaves) ever lasts out the hour. Served with a generous spread of butter and some strawberry jam, it is pure heaven on a slice of goodness. The one time I had 1/4 a loaf last the evening, I sliced it up thin and turned out these perfect little finger panini sandwiches. It’s got a flavor depth you just don’t find anywhere else, not quite a sourdough, but not lacking in flavor in the slightest. Thank you for the recipe! This one definitely will go down in my family for years to come.

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