Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Dutch Oven White Bread

This is a really simple bread, but the method is a little different. In some ways, it's easier than that other easy bread (I'm looking at you, no-knead) except for the kneading part.

You do need to knead.

But if you've got a stand mixer or a food processor, the machine does the work for you, so kneading isn't a big deal.

If you don't have a machine to do that work, kneading a bread like this isn't a huge effort.

And this method gives you a nice loaf of bread that you can eat the same day.

Dutch Oven White Bread

1 cup lukewarm water
2 1/4 teaspoons yeast (one package)
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 cup semolina flour
2 cups bread flour
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon olive oil

Put the first 4 items in the bowl of your stand mixer, stir, and let it sit for ten minutes, until it's foamy.

Add the flour, salt and olive oil, and first mix, then knead on medium speed until elastic.


Form into a ball, drizzle with a little olive oil, put it back into the bowl (or another clean bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap, and let it rest until it has doubled in size, about an hour.

When it has doubled, take it out of the bowl form it into a nice tight ball. Sprinkle some cornmeal on the bottom of your dutch oven (I used a 5 1/2-quart).

Put the ball into the pot:

.

Put the cover on it and let it sit for about 1/4 of the time the first rise took - about 15
After fifteen minutes, you'll see that it has started to rise.

Like this:


Put the pot into a COLD oven.
Set the temp to 400 degrees.

Bake for 1 hour, or until nicely browned, like this:


Take a close look!

Yum

2 comments:

CJ said...

That looks beautiful. Love the addition of seminola to the dough. I don't have a stand mixer, but don't mind a little hand kneading.

-CJ McD

Donna Currie said...

Hi CJ!

I put semolina in just about all of my white bread recipes. It adds a wonderful flavor to the bread. I've found two different types, and the difference is how fine it's ground. One is like a flour and the other is like a little more gritty, almost like a very fine cornmeal. I didn't notice much of a difference at all, so it's more a matter of which one is more available where you are.

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