Artisan Bread is my last on my Bread Bucket List. I began my baking journey last year, April, 2020 just right after when lockdown started. I had to come back two weeks earlier from my trip to Philippines, New Zealand and Australia. After two weeks on lockdown, I had to find something to do to keep myself busy during lockdown and here I am, so proud to bake like a big time professional baker!
Artisan Bread is definitely a fruit of the baker’s labor of love, patience, dedication, commitment and time to make such kind of bread. It uses traditional methods of baking and only uses natural ingredients which are bread flour, yeast, salt and water. It takes a few hours to make it, from 4 to 24 hours or more depending on how you would like your bread to taste or how much time do you have? The longer time spent for proofing, the better and tastier it becomes. Basically, longer proofing delays its fermentation and would result to better taste
I love Artisan Bread and definitely, I don’t mind taking my time to make it. I normally make dough which is good for two breads. I leave the dough overnight or 24 hours or even longer in the fridge before baking. The dough can stay in the fridge for a week and the longer it stays, the better. Believe me, it pays off…
When the dough has risen, this is the time you put your dough in the fridge. And when you’re ready to bake, just take out the dough at least 3 hours ahead of time and let it set first.
By the way, if you don’t have dutch oven, you can still bake it using the back of your cookies baking sheet or pan uncovered or simply cover it with a stainless and heat resistant bowl or you can use a pot with cover just make sure it can hold heat up to 450F. You can also use pizza slate or stone.
One last tip, you can use whole wheat bread or rye bread or half and half with white flour. I normally use half whole wheat and half white bread or all purpose flour and 100 grams of sourdough starter instead of instant yeast.
INGREDIENTS: 1 bread
- 3 cups whole wheat flour (bread flour or all purpose flour)
- 1 1/2 cups of warm filtered water
- 2 tsp instant yeast
- 1 1/2 tsp salt
PREPARATIONS:
- Mix flour and instant yeast
- Add water and mix well until the dough becomes sticky
- Cover with cloth and let it rise for 3, until double and bubbly
- On a floured surface, scrape dough slowly and sprinkle dough with some flour
- Using a scraper, fold each side to center and form into round carefully
- Transfer to a bowl lined with parchment paper for easy transfer to the dutch oven
- Let it set for 45 minutes
- Preheat oven to 450F with dutch oven inside
- Transfer your dough to dutch oven
- Bake for 30 minutes with lid
- Remove lid and bake for another 10 minutes
- Remove from oven and let it cool for at least 20 minutes before slicing
- Serve warm with butter
Enjoy!
Amazing Grace, the Travelling Baker 