This is a quick (relatively because it still takes about 5-6 hours) white bread recipe from seriouseats. I only do half the recipe and ignore some rising/folding steps, but it comes out really good anyway.
Ingredients
- 500g all purpose flour
- 350g room temp. water
- 11g salt
- 2 grams instant yeast
- vegetable, canola oil for greasing
Nutrition
- Total Calories: 1820
- Weight: 850g
Directions
- Combine flour and water in bowl and let rest for 15-60mins.
- Add salt/yeast and mix until incorporated and dough is smooth, move to lightly oiled bowl, cover and let rise for 1.5-2hrs until increased in volume by half.
- Shape dough into round and let rest covered with towel for 5mins, seam side down.
- Transfer to bowl lined with lightly floured cloth or kitchen towel, refrigerate until nearly doubled, about 60-90mins.
- Meanwhile preheat over with dutch oven to 500F, at least 30mins.
- Carefully transfer dough seam side down into hot dutch oven, spray with water and score with parallel lines roughly 3inches apart, cover and cook for 15mins. Reduce oven to 450F and cook for another 15mins. Remove cover and cook for another 15-20mins until crust is dark brown.
- Transfer to cooling rack and cool for at least 1 hour before slicing.
Notes:
- Total time about 5-6hrs.
- Can use stand mixer or mix by hand.
Step by Step
Amazing bread can be made with just a few ingredients. For this recipe it’s just flour, water, salt and yeast (and oil for greasing).
As for any baking recipe I find using a scale is the way to go.
Add the water to the flour and mix.
This mixture tastes awful. It really makes me appreciate how important salt can be, and offers a window into history and why salt was so valued (also for preserving meats) and caused the rise and fall of empires for thousands of years. If I had to eat bread with no salt I might go to war to get some salt.
Anyway, next step is to add salt and yeast and mix until the dough is smooth.
Cover and let rise for about an hour. After that take it out and form a ball - let rest for 5mins seam side down.
Place in towel lined bowl and in fridge for about an hour.
While it is in the fridge preheat the oven, with Dutch oven inside. Be careful when handling, something heavy and 500F is dangerous, especially when it looks the same when at room temperature and 500F - can you tell how hot it is?
For the record it was about 450F in that image. Next step is to carefully place the dough in seam side down, score the top, and spray with water. Scoring allows the expanding dough to expand somewhere, without it you might get oddly shaped bread or strange protrusions, plus it looks cool. The water is to make steam which helps create a hard crust, the Dutch oven lid helps keep the steam in contact with the dough rather than the sides of your actual oven.
After about 45mins of total cooking, 15mins at 500F with the lid on, 15mins at 450F with the lid on and 15mins at 450F without the lid you will get some nice looking bread.
This next part is probably the hardest, you need to let it cool on a wire rack for an hour. You just spent 4-5hours on and off making this bread, it smells amazing because it is fresh bread, and it looks amazing, but you have to wait a whole hour.
While cooling you can hear crackling noises, apparently that means it is really good bread. If you don’t believe me watch Ratatouille. Or make some and see.
The inside crumb shot:
You might be able to see one little area of undercooked dough, but otherwise it came out quite good. I’ve made this a few times and never been disappointed. I enjoyed it most as bread for grilled cheese - it makes a massive grilled cheese sandwich you can drench in butter and stack with cheese. It’s also pretty good as a side dish for pasta. Or as a snack by itself.