Bread – Dutch Oven

Directions

• Mix flour, salt, and yeast together in large glass bowl (metal spoils the yeast).
• Mix warm water and honey until honey dissolves.  Water temperature should be 120 – 130F.  Measure with candy thermometer.
• Add water mixture to dry ingredients and stir together. Dough should be very wet and sticky. Add water sparingly until you reach this consistency.
• Let mixture rise in a glass bowl covered in plastic wrap for 3-4 hours in a warm place. Dough needs to double in size.   I use my oven at 95F.
• After rising you can bake the bread (see steps below) OR put it in the fridge for a minimum of 8 hours and a maximum of 3 days. Leaving it in the fridge adds more flavour to the bread as the yeast does more work with the sugar and gluten.  If you put it in the fridge, bring it out about 1 hour before baking to allow dough to come to room temperature.
• About 45 minutes before you are ready to bake the bread, put the empty Dutch Oven (with the lid on) in the oven and heat the oven to 450F degrees.  It will take 30 minutes at 450F for Dutch Oven to come up to temperature.
• While the dutch oven is heating up, turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and make it into a ball. You can add herbs and shredded cheese at this point by lightly pulling the dough over top of the additions and turning.  Repeat until incorporated.
• Put the ball of dough on parchment paper and into a clean glass bowl or loaf pan.
• Let rise another 30 minutes (while the dutch oven is heating).
• Take the Dutch Oven out of the oven and place parchment paper with dough ball into the hot Dutch Oven.
• Return the Dutch Oven (with lid) to oven and bake for 30 – 35 minutes.
• Depending on your oven, you can remove the lid from the Dutch Oven and leave the bread uncovered in the oven another 5-10 minutes more to brown up.
• Enjoy