Easy bread recipe, originally from the New York Times
This recipe makes wonderful bread, it has a really crispy crust but a nice soft center.
Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 45 minutes
The day before you want to eat the bread
3 Cups of flour
¼ teaspoon of instant yeast (yes, just a ¼ teaspoon)
1.5 teaspoons of salt
1 5/8 cups of water
-Mix in a large bowl for just a couple minutes until everything is blended well.
-Cover with plastic wrap and let sit for about 18 hours
Bread Making Day!
-2.5 hours before you want to eat the bread
-Put a good layer of cornmeal in the center of a cotton towel (I’ve also used a paper towel)
-Coat your hands with flour since the dough will still be quite sticky, you can even dust the dough with flour if you want, but just a wee lil bit.
-Take the dough (which should be twice the size with lots of air holes) and form it into a ball, again no more then 1 – 2 minutes to form the ball
-Place the ball on the towel
-Dust with more cornmeal
-Place another towel on top of the dough
-Leave there for 2 hours
After 1 ½ hours
-Get the heaviest 6-8qt pot you can find (cast iron, ceramic,) with a lid.
-Place the pot in the oven
-Preheat the oven to 450 for half an hour (we want to get the pot really really hot)
Bread making time
-Take the pot out of the oven
-Put dough ball in pot
-Put the lid on the pot
-put pot in the oven for half an hour
After half an hour in the oven
-Take the lid off the pot
-Put pot back in the oven for 15-20 minutes
After 15 – 20 minutes
-Take the pot out of the oven
-Take the bread out of the pot
-Enjoy the bread!
Delusions of Chefery 