Bread is Easy

DSC-1324.jpg
DSC-1324.jpg

What you need..

4 1/2 cups of flour.. Mix and match. In this case, it was 1 cup rye, 3 1/2 cups white. But feel free to use any combination of any types of flour.  The finer the grind, the better.
2 cups of hot tap water
1 tablespoon of yeast
1/2 heaping tablespoon of sea salt or 1/2 level teaspoon of iodized salt
Handfull of corn meal.

Pour water into a bowl. Add salt and yeast. Stir till salt dissolves.  Slowly add flour and stir with a whisk.  Once it's too thick for the whisk, stir with a spoon.  Continue to add flour till there's about half a cup left.  The dough mixture should be sticky, yet firm enough to peel away from the sides of the bowl when stirred vigorously.  Don't sweat it.  Experiment.  Let the mixture sit for a minimum of 3 hours.  Maximum of 8.  If you need to let it sit longer, 24 hours in the fridge is good.  If you want it to rest longer than 24 hours, use less yeast.

Put heating stone in oven.  Heat oven to 450F.  Once the oven reaches 450, toss some corn meal on the stone to keep the dough from sticking.  Don't punch dough down.  Just toss some flour on it, grab the dough and give it quick shaping.. loaf or round and slap it down on the stone.  Sprinkle some flour on top to keep it from burning.  Bake for 35 minutes.  Pull it out, let it rest for at least 15 minutes.  Slice and enjoy.

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