Thursday, March 17, 2011

Artisan Bread

  This bread recipe is fabulous!  I also use the dough for making pizzas.  You can add some whole wheat flour, rye flour, etc.  It is so easy & keeps in the fridge for 14 days. I do mix it up in my Kitchen Aid mixer, with a dough hook, but you don't have to. I hope you'll try this recipe.

Adapted from “Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day,” by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë François (Thomas Dunne Books, 2007)

3 cups lukewarm water
1 1/2 tablespoons yeast
1 1/2 tablespoons kosher salt
6 1/2 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour, more for dusting dough
Cornmeal

1. In a large bowl or plastic container, mix yeast and salt into the lukewarm water (about 100 degrees). Stir in flour, mixing until there are no dry patches. Dough will be quite loose. Cover, but not with an airtight lid. Let dough rise at room temperature 2 hours (or up to 5 hours).

2. Bake at this point or refrigerate, covered, for as long as two weeks. When ready to bake, sprinkle a little flour on dough and cut off a grapefruit-size piece . Turn dough in hands to lightly stretch surface, creating a rounded top and a lumpy bottom. Put dough on parchment paper that has been sprinkled with cornmeal.  Allow to rest for 40 minutes.  Keep the rest of the dough in a covered container that is not airtight,  in the fridge.

3.Twenty minutes before baking time, preheat the oven to 450 degrees, with a baking stone placed on the middle rack.  Place  an empty broiler pan on any other shelf that won't interfere with the rising bread.

4. Dust dough with flour, slash top with serrated or very sharp knife three times. Slide onto stone by using a rimless cookie sheet (who needs a pizza peel??) parchment paper & all.   Pour one cup hot water into broiler pan and shut oven quickly to trap steam.  Bake until well browned, about 35 minutes. Cool completely.

Yield: 4 1-lb. loaves.

I had enough dough to make two loaves of bread & two 13" pizzas.

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