I love baking bread, and I love the smell that ruminates through the house. I love that my kids sit and wait for it to be sliced and how much they love it. I love that making homemade bread doesn’t just create food, it creates memories. The extra work is worth it on so many levels. During this time that we have been quarantined, I’ve been making all our bread. This is a favorite of ours and I hope is creating some good memories in this crazy time. This bread is wonderfully simple and delicious. The recipe is from one of my favorite books, A Passion for Bread, by renowned baker Lionel Vatinet. If you are interested in or love baking bread, you will love this book. He spends so much time on the process and the love of the process. It’s a great book, which produces great bread. Happy Weekend!
Notes
Note: Actual prep time is 30 minutes, but rising time is almost 2 hours total.
Ingredients
- Adapted Recipe from A Passion for Bread, by Lionel Vatinet
- 454 g bread flour (3 1/2 cups approx)
- 9 g (1 1/2 tsp. salt approx)
- 5 g Active Dry Yeast (1 1/2 tsp. approx)_well)
- 1 1/4 cups plus 2 Tbsp water (if mixing by hand, the temperature should be between 82 and 84 degrees Fahrenheit, and if mixing with an electric mixer, the temperature should be between 65 and 70 degrees Fahrenheit)
- Note: The instructions below are only for hand kneading.
Instructions
- Place the flour in a mixing bowl, and then add the salt on one side and the yeast on the other (don't let the two touch).
- Using your hands, bring the dry ingredients together. Make a well in the middle.
- Add the water with a steady stream.
- Using a spoon or a dough whisk (which is what I prefer to use), bring the ingredients together until the dough forms. Mix together a few times with your hands, and place on your work surface (don't flour). The dough will be extremely sticky, but try and resist adding flour. Knead for 10 minutes or so until it feels a bit resistant and bouncy, and use the window pane test (stretch dough out and you should see light through the dough without it breaking).
- Once the dough is ready, lightly dust a large bowl with flour and add the dough. Place a plastic wrap loosely over the dough, but make sure the bowl is large enough, where the dough will not make contact with the wrap, or it will stick.
- Let rise in a draft free spot at room temperature for about 1 hour or until it has doubled in size.
- Gently turn the dough out onto your work surface. Lightly dust with flour if needed. Gently pat down into a rectangle, and shape into a ball by stretching and folding the dough under at angles all around the dough. It should be a nice tight ball when finished. I used a boule proofing basket, which was lightly dusted with flour. You can shape the bread anyway you would like. Lightly flour some plastic wrap and loosely cover. Place in a draft-free spot at room temperature for the final fermentation. This should take 45 minutes to 1 hour. You will know its done when you poke at it and it comes back evenly.
- Preheat the oven to 450 degrees when the dough is almost ready. (I create steam during baking, by placing a large baking pan on the bottom of the rack filled with water. If you do this, you will need to warm up the empty pan in the oven for 5 or 10 minutes before placing the bread in. Water will be added when the bread is placed in the oven, see below).
- Remove the dough from the proofing basket, by gently turned it over on a cornmeal dusted peel. Dust a baking sheet with cornmeal.
- Score the bread, using a bread lame or a sharp knife. Sprinkle flour on top of the bread before scoring. Have fun with your patterns!. The book does a great job explaining different methods and how to achieve them.
- Place the bread on the rack above the baking sheet that has been heating up. Pour room temperature water in the large baking pan, which is below the bread. This will create steam while the bread is baking in a baking sheet on a higher rack. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes until a deep golden brown and the center reads 185 to 210 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Wait at least 1 hour before slicing, if you can. The longer it sits, the better and more moist it will be.
I am excited to bring my bread to Fiesta Friday #326 and to co-host with Zeba of Food for the Soul. Don’t forget to stop by Fiesta Friday and check out all the wonderful dishes, including her delicious posts!
Thank you, Angie! Good luck with it!
Antonia, it looks gorgeous. Take care!
Thank you, Jhuls!
I can just smell the bread baking….so good!
Thanks, Jen!
I would like to try this recipe as soon as I find some yeast at the store again, hehe.