Crusty bread!?!

Question:

Crusty bread!?

I need a recipe for a nice, crusty loaf of bread that does NOT require a bread machine. Something that will go nicely with a soup or stew. I'm old school (basically don't own a machine ha!)

Additional Details

1 day ago
Yea yea I know they have it at the store but I like to bake bread. I like cooking =)

Answers: 1 day ago
Yea yea I know they have it at the store but I like to bake bread. I like cooking =) As a pastry chef, artisan bread is a pain in the ***. It is time consuming and difficult, but if done properly, there are few things more wonderful and more delicious!!

Here is a pretty simple recipe I found online that seems to have everything required of a nice crusty artisan bread.

Rustic Bread

Makes 2 large loaves

Preferment:
1 lb. bread flour (3 1/2 cups)
9.5 oz. water (1 1/4 cups)
1/2 tablespoon salt
1/8 teaspoon instant yeast

Final dough:
10 oz. bread flour (2 1/2 cups)
6 oz. whole wheat or rye flour or a mixture of them (around 1 1/2 cups)
12.5 oz. water (1 1/2 cups)
1/2 tablespoon salt
1/2 teaspoon instant yeast
all of the preferment

Put the yeast in the water and stir. Mix the flour and salt together in a bowl and pour in the yeasted water. Mix until the flour is hydrated, adding more water if necessary. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and leave the pre-ferment out at room temperature overnight (up to 16 hours... if you need more time before baking put it in the refrigerator).

To make the final dough, combine all of the ingredients except the pre-ferment in a mixing bowl. Chop the pre-ferment up into small pieces and mix or knead it into the final dough until they are thoroughly combined. This is quite difficult to do by hand: Hamelman assumes the baker has a mixer and can mix it for 5 minutes by machine. I mix and knead my dough by hand for about 10 minutes. At the end of that time the new and old dough aren't perfectly combined-- you can still see a few streaks of the lighter colored pre-ferment in it-- but they are sufficiently combined that loaves bake evenly.

Place the dough back in a greased bowl and ferment for 2 1/2 hours, punching down or folding the dough twice during that time.

(Folding the dough consists of taking the dough out of the bowl, spreading it out a little on a clean surface, folding it in thirds like a letter, rotating it 90 degrees and folding it up again, and then returning the dough to the bowl and covering it again. Like punching down, folding degases the dough some, but it also encourages gluten development.)

At the end of the fermentation, divide the dough into two pieces and preshape each into a ball. Cover with a clean towel and let each rest for 5 to 10 minutes before shaping into the final shape. Once shaped, cover the loaves with a clean towel and set aside for a final rise, approximately 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 hours.

Halfway though the final rise, begin preheating the oven to 450 degrees. If you are using a baking stone, preheat it as well.

Right before placing it in the oven, score the loaves. Place them in the oven and use whatever technique you use to create stream in the oven (squirt bottle, skillet full of hot water, etc) to encourage proper crust development.

After 20 minutes of baking, rotate the loaves 180 degrees so that they'll bake evenly. Bake until an instant read thermometer reads around 200 degrees, which took approximately 35 minutes for 2 batard ("football") shaped loaves Step one... get in car
Step two... go to bakery
Step three... pick out crusty loaf bread
step four... pay for bread
step five... drive home
step six... eat crusty bread.

Greatest recipe for bread! http://www.europeancuisines.com/peters-m... Basic Crusty Bread Recipe
Ingredients:
2 cups Bread Flour
? cup Distilled Water
1 tsp Yeast
? tsp Sugar
1 tsp Salt
1 tsp Olive Oil




Basic Instructions:

Measure off ? cup of distilled water. But only pour a little of it into your mixing bowl. Then stir in the ? tsp Sugar, and then add the 1 tsp of yeast and stir a little.
After 10 minutes the yeast should have "bloomed" (got foamy). Now add the 1 tsp Olive Oil, 1 tsp Salt (bread needs salt for taste!) and the 2 cups of Bread Flour.
Put the mixing paddle on your mixer and mix for a little bit (usually just a minute or two).
Then replace the mixing paddle with the "dough hook", and let it kneed the dough for another 10 minutes. (If no mixer kneed by hand 15 to 20 minutes)
Place dough ball in a bowl lightly lubed with olive oil, cover, and let rise for 60 to 90 minutes. I do this in my un-lit oven.
After 60 to 90 minutes the dough should be twice the size. Dump the dough out on to a board, punch it down, and cut in two.
Form each piece into a loaf by rolling it up and pinching the seams together. Then roll on the board some more, and cover (seam down). Let loave(s) rise again for another hour.
Pre-heat your oven to 450° degrees. (A high temp makes for a nice crust)
Now that the loave(s) have risen again, slide them onto the pre-heated stone in your oven (or put the baking sheet in now), and bake at 450° for 20 minutes.
Let the loaves cool for 30 minutes or more before cutting into them your local supermarket or bakery should have one in the first minuets of the baking, there should be some humidity in the oven. once you have placed the bread in the oven, spray some water inside, and close the oven door.
repeat the process after 4 minuets or so. you should be baking in a very hot oven. min. 400 d.f.
this goes for all kinds of bread, buns excluded.

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