Our daily bread

Our Nik has a weekend job delivering bread for La Baguette in Ashland.  He drives all around town in a van full of buns and baguettes destined for the various markets and restaurants, replacing yesterday's loaves with new ones.  He often gets to bring home day-olds, so we tend not to buy much bread at the grocery store anymore. Not that I did anyway, these past three years, at least not in the summertime, thanks to New York Times "Artisan Bread". When there are no La Baguette rejects, we favor this ridiculously easy to make rustic round loaf. 

This recipe created a huge sensation among home-cooking foodies when it first appeared in the New York Times in 2006.  Since then, many variations have turned up in various cookbooks and magazines.  It deserves all the attention. With only four ingredients to stir together, and no kneading involved, it truly is revolutionary.  And it works out to about 26 cents a loaf - sure beats the $4 or $5 you'd pay for a good loaf of bread at the bakery (with no disrepect intended toward La Baguette et al - it's the overhead, I know).

The only drawback is the timing.  While it only takes five minutes to mix up the dough, you have to plan ahead to ensure you'll be home 18 hours later to turn it out, then two hours after that to bake it for 40 minutes.   Also, because the rising takes place over 18 hours, people who do not heat their houses at night in winter (like us) have to settle for store-bought - or a different recipe with a shorter rising time- in the cold season.

Here's the recipe, just in case the NYT link doesn't work for you.

Artisan Bread

3 C. flour (I use half bread flour, half regular unbleached white flour)

¼ t. fast-acting (“bread machine”) yeast

1 ¼ t. salt

1 1/2 C. warm water

18 hours later

Mix all ingredients together. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let rise 18 hours in a warm room.

Turn onto a floured surface and fold over twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest 15 minutes. Gently shape into a ball. Dust a smooth cotton cloth generously with flour, cornmeal, or bran and set the ball of dough on it. Cover with another flour-dusted towel and let rise 2-3 hours – now it should be more than double in size.

This old Dutch oven is perfect for the job

While the dough is rising (the last 30 minutes of the rising time), heat a heavy covered Dutch oven or other deep heavy pot with a lid in the oven to 450 degrees.

When dough has risen, remove the top cloth, then pick up carefully by the cloth underneath and dump the dough out into the heated Dutch oven (it’s all right if it has stuck to the cloth and so is not perfectly smooth; just scrape any stuck dough off and toss it in on top). Bake with the lid on for 30 minutes, then uncover and bake about 10 minutes more, until nicely browned. Remove bread from pot to cool. After it has cooled completely, you might want to store it in a plastic bag so it doesn’t dry out too quickly.

The odd lump on top is a little piece of dough I scraped off the cloth and tossed in the pot.  It will still taste good!