Recipe: Easy Bread

Yesterday I ventured to make my first loaf of bread. The last skill on my resume is a baker. I do not bake. If you ask me to bring dessert to a food function, it will always be store bought. However, technically bread making is baking. I was determined to make a good (okay, hoping for great) bread; so I put aside my fears of the term baking and tried my hand at bread making. 

What you'll need: 

1 large bowl

1 wooden spoon

3 cups Unbleached Bread Flour

1 1/4 teaspoons Kosher Salt

1/2 teaspoon Instant Rising Yeast

1 1/2 cups very warm water (not boiling though) 

1 Stainless Steel pot w/ the lid (or a french oven)

Directions:

Mix all dry ingredients together..flour, salt, yeast. 

Then add the very warm water. 

(Side note: I had my dough all ready when my husband came home and asked if I used warm water. Um, no? Why? I didn't read the back of the yeast package before I started, and sure enough - to activate yeast mix dry ingredients together with very warm water. Hmm, okay. So I just whipped up a new batch.)

Mix until all ingredients are combined. And don't worry, you don't need to over mix. This is suppose to be easy. Cover the dough with plastic wrap and let sit for 12-19 hours. 

Excessively flour your work station and lay the dough right in the middle. Begin to form a heavily floured dough ball; the shape of a perfect round loaf.

Cover with plastic wrap and let sit for another 1-2 hours. When you have about 30 minutes left of this sitting period, preheat the oven to 450 degrees and place your pot inside. Once the 30 minutes is done, take out your pre-heated pot and place your doughy loaf inside. 

++ Do not grease/spray the bottom of the pot ++

Make sure your dough is well floured on the bottom. If it isn't it will stick. (DO NOT use a spray because that will burn the bottom.) Bake for 30 minutes covered. After this time, remove the lid and bake for an additional 10-15 minutes. It should be getting golden brown on top at this time. Once done, take out and marvel at your handiwork. 

Take out and enjoy warm, or let sit on a cooling rack until you are ready to eat. 

Either way enjoy!

Bread making, not baking ;)

xo leah