8/25/23 Used this recipe and baked in a Dutch Oven
Baked for 35 minutes perfect
Preheating the Dutch Oven
You want your Dutch oven to be good and hot for baking the bread so it gets a chance to crisp up properly on the outside.
About 30 minutes to an hour before you want to bake the bread, place the Dutch Oven, with the lid on, on the center rack of your oven and turn your oven on to 450 degrees F. Once it reaches 450, keep preheating the Dutch Oven for about 20 minutes
Well we are breadaholics, if that's a word!We learned the art of the breadmaking from our friends
Velia and Salvatore in Italy. Their flour and water is different so for years we have tried and tweaked
to get it just right. Finally we got the plan down. The ingredients and water all make a big difference. We started to have problems with it coming out just the way we liked it and realized that we used to shop at Sams and buy their flour. When we switched to Costo it was starting to be different.
This recipe will make 2 good size loaves but depending on what you want or need you might need to double this recipe. If you have a mixer that is large enough, you can do it all in 1 batch.
Note: 10/23/17 used bottled water, started bread at 400 then turned down to 350 bread plus let it set overnight extremely airy and crusty
4 cups bread flour
2 cups warm water
1 T sugar
1 T salt
2 T yeast or a little more than 2 packets
Olive oil
2 eggs beaten
Mix the yeast in the water and let stand in a warm place about 10 minutes until foamy.
In another bowl add 4 cups of flour and add the salt. When the yeast is ready, add the sugar and mix.
Mix the liquid with the flour and mix until all blended. We use our Hobart mixer but have always used the Kitchen Aid and it always works perfectly. Velia told us that when its ready it will be like a baby's butt! Knead about 8-10 minutes. When the dough is ready, it will spring back when poked.
In clean bowl add the olive oil and coat the bowl evenly. Add the dough to the bowl and swirl around to completely coat the bowl. Add additional olive oil on the of the dough if needed. Place in a warm area covered for 2 hours.I preheat the oven slightly before setting the dough inside to rise.
After an hour, preheat the oven to 350. When the oven is ready turn the dough onto the counter and split into 2 parts. Knead each one about 20 times and form in to a loaf. You want to roll into a loaf form. Place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Sprinkle a little corn meal on the parchment if you have it. Make 3 or 4 diagonal slits across the top of each loaf.
In a separate dish crack the eggs and whisk them. With a kitchen brush, paint each loaf completely with an egg wash. Don't miss any area, because it will be very obvious.
In a separate dish crack the eggs and whisk them. With a kitchen brush, paint each loaf completely with an egg wash. Don't miss any area, because it will be very obvious.
you will need to watch it.
We have well water and use it through a charcoal filter. It may take a few trial and error's to get it right and we've done thousands of times..so you can email me if you have a problem. Chances are we've had that problem before!
If you should have leftover bread, just leave on the counter and let it harden then cut it into cubes and toss in in a food processor and make homemade bread crumbs. They'll keep for a long time - we freeze it and use it as we need it!Zero preservatives!!! Eat healthy!
An awesome twist on this bread and has become our favorite,
is to replace the water in this recipe with whey. You can get this from making our Fresh Ricotta recipe and saving the whey to use in this recipe. I highly recommend you give this a try. You won't
regret it!
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11/13/16 Linderland test kitchen notes:
4 cups ap flour in the kitchen aid...added another 1/2 cup, 1/8 cup and 1T
to the kitchen aid as it was mixing...sunny cold day no humidity.
1 T fine sea Salt
when all pulled together in the KA, 5 minutes on #3.
90 minute rise in glass bowl with minimum olive oil. Used the
plate warmer for the rise.
Oven at 350 then put it at 400 to put the bread in..5 minutes and
then down to 350 for 20 minutes and then to 325 for 10 minutes.
12/22/18 added 4 oz of our friendship starter and ended up with 5 and 3/8 cups flour plus 1T and 2t
put in...after all this we forgot to cut the slices across the top...came out fabulous but both broke open since they couldn't let their steam out..
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