A Tale of Two Breads

Delicious whole wheat french bread.  

It lasted 2 hours before being devoured.

With Dale home more and me feeling more energized having an extra hand around we have been immersing ourselves into the art of bread-making.  For years, after many failed attempts at yeast rising breads, I called it quits and settled on quick breads (banana, zuchinni etc) as our form of bread making.  After a friend of mine posted a wonderful blog on making Whole Wheat French Bread I decided to face my fears, fix my mistakes, and learn how to make some god-damn bread (excuse my french...) Well, I am glad I got over my fears because that french bread was so soft, delicious, and flavorful and was easily tackled in between diaper laundry and dinner.  Another friend of mine was so impressed she demanded a bread making lesson at 9pm on a Wednesday night, so we set forth....AND it was more delicious than the first batch.  

Feeling confident and eager to learn more, I set out on another search for bread recipes.  I love the French Bread recipe but it does require a little bit of focus and a kitchen timer which is sometimes impossible when you have two rugrats running around.  I wanted something flavorful, sandwich worthy, and easy.  When another blogger posted her recipe for "No Knead Ugly Bread" I was sold.  Ugly bread--has a lovely ring to it, right?  Let me say, stop whatever you doing, and go make this bread right now!  It has a thick artisan crust, soft interior, and is no-knead, rise overnight, cook in your dutch oven, HANDS FREE bread. I prepared my dough the night before while the kids were sleeping and had bread for lunch the next day. Seriously. A dream come true. 

The recipe:

                     This is what it should look like before you cover it and let rest.

1.) Mix 3 cups of all purpose flour, 1 1/2 tsp of salt, 1/2 tsp of yeast, and 1 1/2 cups of lukewarm water.  Mix it up until well combined, shape into a ball, cover, leave it on your counter and walk away for 12-18 hours.  Yes.  Walk away.  Get on facebook and waste time, go to bed, or finish reading this recipe, because you have 18 hours to do absolutely nothing to this dough.

How I spent part of the 18 hours.  Wine, anyone?

2.) The next day (12-18 hours later) you will heat your oven to 450 degrees.

Once it is up to temperature, you are going to heat an oven-safe Dutch Oven and lid. Let this heat 20-25 minutes.

 What your dough should look like 18 hours later.  It smells like beer!

 I don't think its ugly at all! Shaped and ready for the dutch oven.

3.) While this is going on, lightly flour a piece of foil, parchment paper, or floured towel (anything really) to put your dough on.  Plop the sticky blob out onto your floured surface. With floured hands, pull out any dough that remains in the bowl. Shape the dough into a ball, and cover it with a towel until the Dutch oven is finished heating.

Ready for baking.

4.) Carefully plop your dough into the dutch oven using whatever means necessary.  I simply picked up my foil and plopped the dough in. Now, bake, covered for 30 minutes.  Uncover, and let bake for another 15 minutes. Remove it from the oven and let it cool on a rack.

This is the "Ugly" Bread. It is a soft, tender bread, with an "artisan" crunchy crust. 

You can make any number of variations of this. You can add some shredded cheese, some herbs, sun-dried tomatoes? Whole garlic & some dried oregano? Endless possibilities.

So there you have it.  A tale of two breads.  Now go out and make some and quit spending money on bread.