Simply BREAD

I'm a devoted breadivore. Really. So is my husband. I think it's fair to say that both of us would pick bread as our primary source of starch.

As a little kid I loved to bake things, but all my experiments used baking powder or soda as leavening. Not until UWC (United World College-where I went to high school) did I graduate as a proper baker: one who mastered the art of culturing Saccharomyces cerevisiae aka: baker's yeast. My teacher was a Jordanian guy, who was into 'quick' bread-making. Which fitted our ever-hungry, teenage crowd just fine.

I have since made danishes, croissants, brioche dough, focaccia, pita and many-many other forms of bread. These days I'm into the process. Waiting. Fermenting. Allowing the gluten to rest.

So, it is no surprise that I delighted in finding an 8qt, cast-iron pot with a matching lid under my Christmas tree: Jim Lahey's method for baking bread uses such a Dutch oven to make the perfect, chewy, crusty bread with the ultimate crumb structure.

If you love bread, but have been afraid of kneading it: this is for you!


Ingredients
1/4 tsp dry yeast
1.25 tsp salt
3 cups flour (all purpose, unbleached)
1.5 cups water
cornmeal to dust

Preparation
In a large bowl mix the flour, salt and yeast. Add the room-temperature water and mix quickly until it comes together. Do NOT overwork!

Cover with foil and allow to sit at room temperature for 14 hours.

Pour out onto a floured surface and fold 2-3 times. Cover with a plastic wrap and allow to rest for 15 minutes.

Generously dust a dry kitchen cloth (not the linty kind) with cornmeal. With as few moves as possible, form the dough into a ball and place it onto the cornmeal seam-side down. Dust the top with cornmeal and fold the cloth over it. Allow to rest for 2 hours.

Half an hour before the dough finished rising, preheat the oven to 450F with the Dutch oven and its lid inside. When the dough is ready, flip it into the preheated pot. Cover with the lid and bake at 450F for 30 minutes. Remove the lid and bake for longer if you would like the top crust darker.

Makes the perfect 1.5 pound loaf. Jim Lahey's "My Bread" has many more recipes starting from the same no-knead system.

Bon appetit!
This was incredibly delicious with home-made apricot marmalade. Yes, marmalade, not jam!