If you’re like me, you’re just recently finding yeast in your grocery stores. I’ve always wanted to make my own bread but lockdown crushed all of those dreams when it turned out that everyone else wanted to bake their own bread. But I’ve finally gotten my hands on yeast and this is the first thing I made.
This bread is perfect for lockdown because, well, it takes six hours to make. I know that’s practically forever, but there’s only like 15 minutes of active work that entire time so it’s not a labor of love, it just takes a while. You do need a dutch oven to make this because we’re making it in its own tiny oven in your bigger oven.
You can use bread flour for this but you may have to adjust the water levels depending on the humidity in your kitchen. I personally just make everything with all purpose flour because I don’t like having too may ingredients clogging up my kitchen when I already have too many things in there to begin with. Plus it’s all purpose so like, you can use it for everything. Obviously. On to the recipe!
- 2 cups lukewarm water between 90°-110°F
- 1 packet active dry yeast
- 1/4 tsp granulated sugar
- 4 cups all purpose flour plus extra for kneading and dusting
- 1 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp olive oil
- Add yeast and sugar to water and stir to combine. Set aside to bloom until frothy.
- In a large bowl, incorporate flour and salt. Create a small well in the center and pour in yeast and water mixture. Using a wet hand, mix together to make a rough dough that pulls away from the sides of the bowl. If the dough is too sticky, add flour 1 tbsp at a time. If the dough is too dry, add water 1 tbsp at a time.
- Once the dough comes together into a ball, cover with a tea towel and allow to proof for 1 1/2 – 2 hours or until doubled in size.
- Once doubled, uncover and punch out excess air. Using a rubber spatula, pull dough from side of bowl to center of bowl. Rotate the bowl 90° and repeat until all the dough has been pulled into the center. Cover and allow to proof another 1 1/2 – 2 hours or doubled in size.
- Preheat your oven to 450°F. Place large dutch oven (6 quart) with lid inside to heat with the oven. Allow pot to heat for 45 min – 1 hour.
- While the oven preheats, lightly flour a work surface and gently transfer your dough out of the bowl. Sprinkle flour on top of dough and shape into a round loaf, tucking the dough under itself several times to form a ball and pinching the seams together underneath.
- Coat a large bowl with olive oil and dust with flour. Place dough ball seam side down and cover for 1 hour while oven preheats.
- Carefully remove pot from oven (this will be extremely hot) and remove lid. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface, dust top with flour, and VERY CAREFULLY place into preheated dutch oven. Return the lid and place back in oven for 30 minutes.
- After 30 minutes, remove the lid and allow to bake an additional 15 minutes.
- Remove bread from pot and let cool for at least 15 minutes before slicing.