An Easy French Loaf

Since making bread this summer and learning a variety of techniques and methods for homemade bread from relatives and the interwebs, I decided I would not buy bread from the store for the remainder of the year.  Crazy? Possibly.  Rewarding? Definitely.  It may take some time but I can not express how satisfying it is to eat a slice of bread that you have made from scratch.  Mmmmm Mmmmmm Carbs.

Miracle Boule

Making yeast bread can be frightening, but absolute worst case, you make a loaf of dry, dense, not so delicious, or not gonna rise for you bread and you throw it away and start over.  BUT you have to start somewhere!! The good news is, all the bread I have made is atleast edible, and usually tastes good too.  So if I can figure this out, you can too!

The first yeast bread I made were pumpkin garlic knots, which my sister raves about (and I do too), BUT the first loaf I made without the use of a bread machine was The Miracle Boule, from the cooking channel.  Let me tell you, if you need a little self esteem boost about bread making, and you want to impress yourself and others, you have to try this.  It really is very easy and it is oh so delicious!!  Just make sure you start preparing one day before you plan to devour this bread.

Ingredients and materials:

•  3 1/4C bread flour + addt'l flour for tea towel and later kneading pending stickiness of dough  *NOTE*: At sea level or lower altitudes, use 3C flour
• 1 1/4 t salt
• 1/4 t dry active yeast
• 1 1/2 C warm water
• Tea Towel
• Dutch Oven

Directions:

Look of dough after the first rise

1. Mix bread flour, salt and yeast in medium bowl.  Pour in warm water and mix until dough is raggedy, sticky and a bit wet.  Cover bowl with a damp tea towel and let rise in a warm area for 12-24 hours.  *NOTE* - if you live in a humid environment, the tea towel can be dry but I found that in Boulder I needed the towel to be damp so the dough wouldn't dry our during this first rise.

2. After the first rise, once the dough is dotted with bubbles, dump the dough onto a well floured tea towel or other floured surface, it should be floured enough so the dough won't stick to it.  Sprinkle dough with flour, fold dough over a couple of times and cover with tea towel for 15 minutes.  If your dough is REALLY sticky after the first rise, I added additional flour (about 1/8 - 1/4 cup) and briefly kneaded the flour into the dough before covering with the tea towel.

Dough once folding in additional flour

Cover with tea towel for 15 minutes

After 15 minutes, fold into floured tea towel

3. After letting dough rest for 15 minutes, unwrap tea towel, shape dough into a ball, and fold tea towel around the dough.  Allow dough to rise for about 2 hours or until it has doubled in size.
 
4.  About thirty minutes prior to the end of the rise, place Dutch oven in the oven while it preheats to 450 degrees.

5. When dough is ready, remove Dutch oven from the oven, unwrap tea towel, and dump the dough into the warmed dutch oven so the seam side of the dough is facing up.  Shake the pot so the dough settles and return to the oven with the lid on.  Bake for 30 minutes.

6. After dough has baked for 30 minutes, remove lid and bake for an additional 15 minutes or until the top of the bread has browned to your liking.  Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack.   OR if you are like me, remove the bread from the oven, cut a nice size slice and eat it right then!!!  This probably isn't the best way for slicing the bread, but jeez, bread fresh out of the oven is heavenly!

I hope you enjoy this as much as I did!  I attempted to make a similar version with wheat bread that just didn't have the same gusto, so I recommend sticking to All Purpose or White Bread Flour. 

I shout "hooray!"
for the Miracle Boule
Yeast you can Beat, so...

Bon Appetit!!