Time at Home? Upgrade your Bread Making

Time, boredom and a kitchen are a magic combination which should be taken advantage of. There is a bewildering number of excellent rustic bread recipes online, but genuine sourdough bread requires a wild yeast starter, which can be hard to find or take weeks to grow yourself.  Here is a quick-start peasant loaf recipe that is easy to put together with store-bought yeast. But because it features long rising times and many of the same shaping and handling techniques as the best sourdough recipes, it produces a deliciously similar result.  If making it gives you the bug to notch up your game, you can find a full sourdough starter and bread recipe here. Be patient and have fun!

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups unbleached bread flour

1/2 cup barley, rye or spelt flour

1/2 teaspoon active dry yeast

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

All-purpose flour, for dusting

1 1/2 cups lukewarm water

Directions:

1. Whisk all dry ingredients in a  large bowl. Add water and mix with your hands or a spoon until a “shaggy” dough just comes together (wet and sticky). Cover the dough tightly with plastic wrap. You may stop and refrigerate at this stage for up to a day.
2. Let the dough rise, covered, at room temperature for about at least 12 hours, or longer in cooler weather, until at least doubled in size, bubbly and jiggly.
3. Generously dust a work surface with the all-purpose flour. Turn the dough out onto the flour, then sprinkle flour on top. Fold the top and bottom of the dough into the center, then fold in the sides to make a free-form square. Use a dough scraper or a spatula to turn the dough over, then tuck the corners under to form a ball.
4. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and generously dust with flour. Transfer the dough to the baking sheet, seam-side down, pick up the corners of the parchment paper and carefully drop the loaf (with the parchment still under it) into a bowl about the size of the dough. Let rise at room temperature until doubled in size, 2 to 3 hours.
5. Position a rack in the bottom of the oven and place a 2- or 4-quart cast-iron or enameled Dutch oven (without the lid) on the rack. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F for at least 30 minutes. When the dough has doubled, carefully transfer the hot pot to a heatproof surface. Uncover the dough, lift up the parchment and carefully drop the dough into the pot with the parchment still under it. Be careful not to touch the hot pot with your hands.  Spray the interior of the pot with water to create steam. Cover with the lid and bake 30 minutes, then uncover, give the inside of the oven a spray of water, close the door and bake until brown and crusty, 15 to 30 more minutes. Turn onto a rack to cool.