#38 Make bread

The finished product!

When I made this list, I didn't anticipate that a global pandemic would shut down travel and coop us all up at home! I went through the the list and tried to identify what I could accomplish in this time, and it came down to reading books in French and baking bread.

I did a grocery run on Friday and picked up bread flour to tackle this challenge, but sadly, the store was sold out of yeast. At first I was going to try making a sourdough starter instead, but then on a whim, I reached out on my building message board for yeast - within 10 minutes three people had offered to share some!

Dry ingredients mixed first

With yeast secured, I started the no knead bread recipe of Jo Cooks at 11pm Saturday night:
3 cups bread flour
1 3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp active dry yeast
1 1/2 cups water at room temperature

My dough then sat covered in the cool oven for about 16 hours to rise (the recipe recommends 12-18 hours).

The risen dough

While I preheated my Dutch oven to 450 F degrees, I shaped the dough into a ball with floured hands. With a sprinkle of cornmeal on the bottom, I dropped the dough ball into the hot Dutch oven and covered it with the lid.

The dough ball plopped into the preheated Dutch oven

This bread bakes for 30 minutes with the lid on and another 15 to 20 minutes with the lid off until golden brown.

Right out of the oven

It came out perfectly!!! I am so glad I finally made the leap - it definitely wasn't as hard as I thought it would be :P

Perfect pairing with a vegetarian Moroccan stew over couscouse :P

Item 38 Completed 3/29/20
27/48 items complete = 56%