Best Bread EVER

My friend Candy gave me this bread recipe that she got from Tom who said he got it out of the Oregonian. Wherever it came from, I love it. It makes the kind of lovely bread that you get in Italian restaurants that you can't stop eating. I have attempted to make this style of bread before with dismal results. However, this recipe seems to be foolproof (yes, I am the fool here). Also, it's easy to make.

The ingredients:
3 cups flour
1-1/2 cups water
1 tsp instant yeast
3/4 tbsp salt

What you do:
First mix up the dry ingredients. Then add the water and mix. It will make a very wet, sticky dough. Cover the bowl and leave it for 12-18 hours. Yup. Just leave it sitting there.

This is a picture of the dough just sitting there on my kitchen table. Easy!


This is a picture of the dough after 12 or so hours. After it's done doing it's thing, you remove it from the bowl and let it rise for 2-3 hours. Candy said the best way to do this is to use a proofing basket. I had no idea what a proofing basket was, so I looked it up. It's a basket (surprise!) that dough is put in to rise. The idea is that air gets to all sides of the dough so that it will make a nice crust and the dough is already shaped the way you want it to be baked (e.g. oblong or round). Well, I don't have a proofing basket, so until I get one I am improvising. The first time I made this I used a colander. It was okay, but the flour didn't adhere to the sides of the colander so the dough stuck to it badly. The second time I did this I used a floured towel on the counter. I also had major sticking problems -- the moisture from the dough made the towel stick to the counter. The third (and most recent) time I made this I did the following, which worked better than the first two attempts. I put a cooling rack on the counter. On top of that, I put a pizza pan that had holes in it.


Here's a picture, so you know what I'm talking about. On top of the pizza pan, I put a floured kitchen towel.


And, because you've never seen a floured towel before, here's a picture of that. Ha ha. No, I put this here so you would see the inordinate amount of flour I put on the towel. Even with this much flour, I had some minor sticking. Further conversations with Candy revealed that she doesn't have the sticking problem with her proofing basket, so I plan to go out and get one at some point. Okay, now you swirl out the dough from the bowl with a fork and plop that sticky dough ball onto the floured towel. Then you put a whole bunch of flour on top of the dough ball.


Here's what the dough looks like after that. So sad and deflated. Now, you put another towel on top of the dough (or wrap up the sides of the bottom towel) to keep dust, bugs, and Kitty, Ben, and Chew hair off of it. Let it rise again for 2-3 hours. When it's getting close to done rising, turn on your oven to 450 F. After the oven is hot, put an oven-proof vessel that has a lid into the oven to get hot. I use a pyrex bowl. I just went to go see what size it is, so that I could tell you, but it doesn't say on it what size it is. Weird. Well, it's medium-sized. How's that? When the vessel is hot, plop the dough into it.


This is what the dough looks like now sitting in the hot pyrex bowl. It is no longer sad and deflated! Now, put the lid on the bowl and put it in the oven for 30 minutes. After that, remove the lid and bake for an additional 5 or so minutes. The amount of time in the oven without the lid will determine the hardness and brownness of the crust.


Look at how beautiful that is. Now eat all of it!