Bread Recipe

This will be updated as I continue to make more of these and experiment.

The Goal

To make bread on demand but not have a sourdough starter that requires constant maintenance.

Reference

Of all things, I really liked this video for its no-nonsense approach - a lot of bread makers on youtube are very flowery about it and like, I just want to do simple and make solid results.

It's also hard to find non-sourdough videos; even if a lot of the baking theory is similar once you have the dough itself rolling, I just don't want to do the true explicit sourdough thing.

Ingredients

• 3.5 cups bread flour (not all-purpose)

• 1/4 teaspoon yeast

• 2 teaspoons of salt

• 1.5 cups lukewarm water (supposedly tap water doesn't work, but the jury is out) (I'm going to try sparkling water at some point, if for no other reason than it's a bottled water I happen to have)

All this in a big bowl, mix into a dough ball, plastic wrap and let it sit for 24 hours

You should have a nice risen dough at this point, we're going to sprinkle it and our surfaces with more flour and start balling it up. There's good videos for this that will be better than my trying to describe it.

Take a clean kitchen towel and lay it flat. Sprinkle cornmeal on one half. Lay the dough ball on the cornmeal and sprinkle more on the top. Fold the other half of the towel over it to make a nice little blanket and let rise for another hour or two.

Sometime before it's ready, you can start preheating the oven for 450 degrees and if you have one, heat an empty dutch oven in there. I've used a heavy iron frying pan to similar effect.

Also remember to score the bread on top to let it crack open nicely.

Baking requires steam, so there's two methods here:

• If you have a dutch oven with a lid, the steam from the bread itself can be contained nicely. You remove the lid to finish baking dry.

• If you don't have a lid, you can use an open tray or frying pan with water in it placed on the rack below the bread rack such that the water fills the oven with moisture. Remove to finish dry.

Bake for 30 mins and then 15 more without steam, whichever way that is for you.

Then, as if you haven't waited long enough, wait 10 more minutes on a bread board without cutting it to allow cooling.

THEN you can cut and enjoy.