Crusty Bread

I found this recipe via Pinterest, on this blog called Simply So Good.

Note that i added garlic and cheddar to this dough.

Crusty Bread (printable recipe here)

Ingredients

3 cups unbleached all purpose flour

1 3/4 teaspoons salt

1/2 teaspoon yeast

1 1/2 cups warm water

Directions

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together flour, salt and yeast.  Add water and mix until a sticky mixture forms.  Cover bowl with plastic wrap and set aside for 12-18 hours.  

Heat oven to 450 degrees.  When the oven has reached 450 degrees place a cast iron pot (or crockpot) with a lid in the oven and heat the pot for 30 minutes.  Meanwhile, pour dough onto a heavily floured surface and shape into a ball.  Cover with plastic wrap and let set while the pot is heating.  

Remove hot pot from the oven and carefully place it in the pot.  Cover and return to oven for 30 minutes.  After 30 minutes remove the lid and bake an additional 15 minutes.  Remove bread from oven and place on a cooling rack to cool.  

A few notes from me.  This is what my dough looked like right after I added all of the ingredients and just before I covered it to sit overnight.  It is supposed to look like a sticky mess!

Make sure when you turn your dough out to form it into a ball that your surface is heavily floured!  I've learned that the hard way!  When you leave the dough on your surface to rest for 30 minutes, (you know, while the pan is heating up in the oven) this is to allow the dough to raise a little.  Please, make sure that there is quite a bit of flour on your surface.  If your dough sticks, then the time that you have allowed it to rise will be all for naught and you'll have to let it rise again.

Ok, so I do not have a nice cast iron pot to bake my bread in, so I use my crockpot insert and lid.  It works out wonderfully.

 

You can pretty much add anything you want to this recipe to make all sorts of wonderful bread creations.  In my pictures, I had added about 1 cup of cheddar cheese and 1 Tbsp of fresh chopped garlic.

If you head over to Simply So Good, she has a couple of other wonderful creations she has put together that I can't wait to try.