My Basic Bread

This is our couple-times-a-week bread now. Takes about 5 minutes to put the dough together, then it sits overnight or all day, then 5 minutes to get ready for baking, and then 40 minutes to bake. Lots of waiting time, but only 10 minutes or so of active work for fresh bread in your oven.

Basic Wheat Bread

• 3 cups white flour
• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 cup dark rye flour
• 1/3 cup steel cut oats
• 1/3 cup coarse cornmeal
• 20 second drizzle of honey (about 1/4 cup)
• 3 tbs brown sugar
• 1 tb salt
• 1/2 tsp yeast
• 3 1/4 cups warm water (about 110 degrees)

Mix all dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Add water and honey and mix until dough becomes uniform. It will be a very wet dough, closer to batter than dough. You can add another 1/4 cup of water if needed.

Cover the bowl with a cloth and place it in a warm place (i.e., not the fridge). Let dough rise for minimum 6 hours, up to about 36 hours. 8-12 seems to be good. 36 will give the dough a bit of a sour tang, like sourdough. I’ll generally mix up the dough in the evening, then bake it the next morning or evening.

About an hour before baking, split the dough into two greased loaf pans, and let it rise again.

Arrange the oven rack with one towards the bottom, and one in the middle. Place a roasting pan or some other non-glass, non-Teflon pan on the lower shelf. Heat the oven to 450.

Put the pans on the upper shelf, and pour 1 cup of water into the roasting pan, and shut the oven quickly. The steam will help the bread crust stay moist in the high heat.

Bake for 35 minutes. Remove from pan immediately to cool.

Alterations

You can put a half a cup or more of cornmeal in to give it a stronger taste, which I like a lot.

If you don’t have rye flour, you can leave it out for a simpler bread that tastes homier to me. Replace it with a cup of white flour or a half cup white and a half cup wheat.