My Easy Bread Recipe

This recipe is very easy and doesn’t require much of a time commitment.  It does require a Dutch oven with lid.







Ingredients:

3 cups bread flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons dry active yeast
A teaspoon of kosher salt
12 ounces of beer or water
¼ to ½ cup pepitos or chunks of walnuts

Steps:

Mix all of the ingredients in a large bowl, until all of the pieces stick together.  I use a kitchen Aid blender with a dough hook.  In the Kitchen Aid, this takes about five minutes.

Once the dough is in a ball shape, I wash my hands without drying them,  then I mold the dough into a tight ball, kneading the dough as little or as much as needed to form the ball.

 Place the ball into a clean bowl with enough olive oil to coat the sides of the bowl. This keep the dough from sticking to the bowl, and may help to keep the dough from drying out.

I thoroughly moisten a kitchen towel  with warm tap water.  my favorite is a linen towel, terry cloth may stick to the dough.  Cover the bowl with the moist towel. I roll the dough in the bowl to evenly coat the ball with oil.

 Place the covered bowl of dough in a warm place and ignore it for several hours.  I place mine on top of the coffee maker that has a heated water reservoir, but I learned by trial and error that I need to place another pate under the bowl to keep the dough from overheating. 

By several hours, I mean between 5 and 16 hours. I often make the dough as my first activity of the say and bake the bread as my last activity of the evening. So, it is rising while am at work or away from home.

Once the dough has grown to something like double its original size, pull it out to of the bowl, knead it in your hands and fold it into a new ball, then set it aside. This step can be repeated multiple times.

Preheat the oven to 450° F and place the dutch oven in the oven while preheating . When the oven is hot, carefully remove the Dutch oven.  Place the bread in the  Dutch oven .  To keep the bread from splitting , use a sharp knife and slash a cross into the top of  the dough ball .   I like to sprinkle a second teaspoon of kosher salt on the top of the dough.  Replace the lid, place the doutch oven inth eoven and set a timer for 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes, take the lid off the dutch oven and reduce the temperature to 350°F.  bake the bread uncovers for about 20 more minutes.  The internal temperature of the bread should be about 180°F.

 Carefully Remove the bread from the dutch oven and place it on a rack to cool.  You may hear crackling noises from your loaf.  That is a good sound, the bread is cooling.  After about 20 minutes, slice a bit of the loaf and share it with whoever is in the house at the time.

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