The Staff Of Life.

Hey everyone! It’s good to be back online. All the glitches have been taken out and things here at Boone Appétit are back to normal, whatever normal is! Today I thought I’d start out with something thats been fueling the internet and causing shortages from NY to Arizona, bread. Not that you can’t buy store bought bread, no that’s everywhere. You can’t find flour and yeast in many places. I’m asking myself why, but I think it’s kind of obvious. There’s not many things that smell as wonderful as baking bread, it’s a huge comfort food and many people carb out when they are stressed. It’s been called the Staff of Life for a reason, as it enabled man to travel far distances without the need to stop and hunt. It probably saved many from starvation in hard times. Even Mr. Frodo and Sam only had Lembas Bread left to eat on their final leg of their journey into Mordor. It’s also very easy to make and the loaf you’re making at home won’t be filled with all sorts of stuff that you don’t really need in your bread, not to mention you’ll probably eat the whole loaf in two days or so. I know because my sons girlfriend is a vegan and they have eaten an entire loaf together in a day! And yes she’s as skinny as a rail! Ok let’s get right to business and bake an easy loaf of bread.

There’s lots of recipes online for different types of loafs but I’m going to start with a basic recipe that uses only five or six ingredients.( sugar or no sugar, oil or no oil) Theres a few things that can make a difference in your bread and one of them is the temperature of the water where you let the yeast proof (get bubbly). The temperature of the room where you let the dough rise, how much you work the dough ( don’t overwork your dough.) How the final product is cooked. (open in the oven, loaf pan or dutch oven)

• 1 1/2 cups lukewarm water 90-110 F
• 1 3/4 teaspoons active dry yeast or whatever yeast you have.
• 4 cups all-purpose flour, plus a little more for dusting.
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon sugar. Some don’t use sugar but I like my yeast to eat!
• 1 teaspoon olive oil
• In a small bowl mix the yeast and water together and let mixture sit until the yeast gets a little foamy
• In a large bowl mix together the flour and salt and sugar (if using). Then taking your fingers make a well in the middle of the flour mixture, this is where you’ll pour your yeast mixture.
• Wet your hands to keep the dough from sticking to your fingers. Pour yeast into the well in the flour and using your hands start mixing it all together. You want the dough ball to be thick enough that it pulls away from the side of the bowl. If the dough is too sticky then add more flour a little at a time and if its to dry ( not coming together) add a little water at a time. It takes some practice but you’ll see what I’m talking about after your first batch.
• Once you’ve created the dough ball , place it in the bowl and cover the bowl with a dish towel and let the dough rise in a nice warm room undisturbed for about an hour and a half.
• Uncover the dough, it should have doubled in size. Poke the dough with your fingers to deflate it and start pulling it away from the sides of the bowl. Use a spatula if you need to.
• Fold the dough over on itself and turning it until you’ve done that in a complete circle. Cover it again and let it rise for an hour.( if you want to make loaves you could now place the dough into a loaf pan and cover and let rise again for an hour. You’ll have some leftover so make it into any shape you’d like and place it on the baking sheet you’re going to bake it on and cover to let it rise again for 45 minutes.
• Preheat oven to 400 degrees
• remove the covers from the dough and place loaf pan and free formed loaf into oven.
• bake for 30 minutes or until crust is golden and makes a hollow sound when you thump it.
• If you want to make it in a Dutch Oven.
• After the 2nd rise remove the dough from the bowl onto a lightly floured surface and knead the dough forming it into a ball and making sure the “ugly side” is under the dough ball. Now rub it completely with olive oil.
• Place it back into bowl, cover and let rise for another hour.
• Preheat oven to 450 degrees and place your Dutch oven inside to get hot.
• Remove Dutch oven in about 30 minutes.
• Sprinkle the dough with a little flour and remove from the bowl and gently place it in the VERY HOT Dutch oven ugly side down. Cover with the lid of the Dutch oven and place into the regular oven for 45 minutes and then remove the lid and cook for an additional 15 minutes until a nice crust has formed.
• Let cool for at least 15 minutes before giving it a taste.

I know it seems like it takes a long time with all the rising and punching and kneading, but it’s actually not so bad and you can go about your day while it’s all going on. I’ve been making a loaf a day for two weeks so I pulled out my 20 year old bread machine and use it to make the dough. I like baking the bread in the regular oven because the bread machine makes a loaf that looks like Frankenstein’s shoe! Right now since most of us are at home, making bread is a nice way to get back to basics and see that we really can do things the old fashioned way. In some ways it shows us that back in the day our ancestors where probably more prepared for pandemics than we are today.

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I’d love to see and hear from any of you that give this recipe a go. I’ve been looking for other bread recipes that don’t use yeast and I’ve written about a couple here. Banana bread or applesauce bread are also easy to make and don’t require yeast. If you have a bread recipe you’d like to share please do so in the box below. Thanks for sticking with me while I worked the bugs out of the website. Stay calm and cook on. Until next time Boone Appétit!