Usually when I make the European Peasant Bread recipe from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois, I make all the loaves right away, one in a greased non-stick loaf pan and two in greased Pyrex loaf pans, and freeze them after slicing. Why? Because I'm a lazy bum and those are the only pans I own, and I need bread to make lunches in a hurry most mornings.
I like their version baked on a stone with water steaming beneath in a broiler pan, but I'm also adapting the recipes to satisfy the sandwich tastes of a ten year old, not the artisanal desires of his dad. But even at that, the high moisture dough method is still hard to handle without the refrigeration step, and dividing the mass into two, let alone three, is not easy.
So I got to thinking. Why not use a different type of pan, a big one, and bake a giant loaf? Since the lady of the house makes the pizza every Saturday in four cast-iron skillets of varying size, I asked myself why not bake the bread in my greased 4 quart cast iron dutch oven by Lodge?
Another stroke of genius, I dare say. The bread popped out of the thing after the requisite 35 minutes at 450 degrees F looking like a cake! And the really cool thing is you have wonderful crust, but less of it, just perfect for sandwiches for a youngster.
The recipe requires 1.5 T yeast and 1.5 T salt, dissolved in 3 cups lukewarm water in the bowl of the KitchenAid Mixer, to which you add .5 cup whole wheat flour, .5 cup dark rye flour, and 5.5 cups unbleached all purpose flour, using the scoop and scrape method to measure. Once it's all in, I let the mixer work at it for five minutes on setting two, after which you can plop the whole thing into a well-greased camp oven or dutch oven and let rise for an hour or so, covered with a thin flour sack dish towel, and bake.
The result is pictured below. Enjoy!
I like their version baked on a stone with water steaming beneath in a broiler pan, but I'm also adapting the recipes to satisfy the sandwich tastes of a ten year old, not the artisanal desires of his dad. But even at that, the high moisture dough method is still hard to handle without the refrigeration step, and dividing the mass into two, let alone three, is not easy.
So I got to thinking. Why not use a different type of pan, a big one, and bake a giant loaf? Since the lady of the house makes the pizza every Saturday in four cast-iron skillets of varying size, I asked myself why not bake the bread in my greased 4 quart cast iron dutch oven by Lodge?
Another stroke of genius, I dare say. The bread popped out of the thing after the requisite 35 minutes at 450 degrees F looking like a cake! And the really cool thing is you have wonderful crust, but less of it, just perfect for sandwiches for a youngster.
The recipe requires 1.5 T yeast and 1.5 T salt, dissolved in 3 cups lukewarm water in the bowl of the KitchenAid Mixer, to which you add .5 cup whole wheat flour, .5 cup dark rye flour, and 5.5 cups unbleached all purpose flour, using the scoop and scrape method to measure. Once it's all in, I let the mixer work at it for five minutes on setting two, after which you can plop the whole thing into a well-greased camp oven or dutch oven and let rise for an hour or so, covered with a thin flour sack dish towel, and bake.
The result is pictured below. Enjoy!
