Ingredients
- 3 cups all-purpose or bread flour (all white flour? 1/2 white and 1/2 whole wheat? 1/3 white?)
- 1/4 teaspoon instant yeast
- 11/4 teaspoons salt
- Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed. Or sesame seeds &/ or poppy seeds &/or pumpkin seeds . . . or whatever you want to try.
- 1 5/8 cups cool or just warm water
Directions
-
- In a large bowl combine the yeast and the salt. Add 15/8 cups lukewarm water and stir until blended. Stir in the 3 cups of flour: dough will be sticky. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap, or a metal lid or whatever you have (we usually use the metal lid which will cover the dough while it’s cooking) . Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.
-
- Use a table knife or spatula to loosen the dough from the sides of the mixing bowl: it will be very sticky, stringy, spongy. Then tilt the bowl to one side, causing the dough to roll/slide to that side. In the space beneath the dough and on the surface of the dough, sprinkle on whole wheat flour plus (if you like) sesame seeds, poppy seeds, corn meal . . . what have you. Then roll the dough over whatever you put on and sprinkle on more of the same on the other side and top of the dough—so that the whole ball of dough is covered with flour and seeds or corn meal: something preventing it from sticking to the bowl. Let it rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, the dough will be more than double in size (sometimes still rather sticky).
-
- About a half-hour before the dough is ready, heat your oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex, or ceramic) in the oven as it heats. When the dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Gently turn the dough out of the bowl into the cooking pot. Shake the pot once or twice if the dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. (Go easy on the shaking.) Cover with a lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove the lid and bake another 10 to 20 minutes, until the loaf is nicely browned. Cool on rack.
-
Time: Allow 14 to 20 hours rising and then another 2½ hours (additional rising and baking)