European Peasant Bread

I love bread.  No, I really, REALLY love bread.  I think I'm in love with bread, but only homemade bread, preferably made by me.  Today's Pinterest recipe is one I've actually made a few times.  European Peasant Bread, posted by Foodie Reflections, is a favourite of mine and Jack's.  Jack calls it Viking bread.  Whatever.  It's so easy it almost makes itself.  After mixing the ingredients and letting the no-knead dough rise for two hours you just chuck it in the fridge and leave it alone for up to two weeks.  I think the longer you leave it, the more the flavour develops.

A note on the ingredients: I didn't have rye flour so I just replaced that with more whole wheat flour.  It's best not to deviate more than that in the proportions of white/non-white flour.

When you decide you're in the mood for bread, take the dough from the fridge.  This recipe says to use a one pound blob of dough.  I found that one pound didn't work for me.  Maybe I just did it wrong.  I think I used half of the dough at a time.  The easiest way to let it rise after forming the loaf, which is not easy...it's like trying to hold on to a giant amoeba, is to let it rise on a clean dish towel which has been sprinkled liberally with flour, cornmeal or wheat germ (I am partial to wheat germ.  It adds a nice flavour.) because after it's risen you can pick the whole thing up and dump it upside down into your pot.  It will look like crap, but that doesn't matter because while it bakes it will fix itself.  Trust me. When it's done you won't believe you actually made such a beautiful loaf of bread.

The baking part looked a bit scary to me at first.  You have to set your oven to "inferno" and heat your baking vessel (and its lid) until it's insanely hot.  I used a small, round ceramic roasting pan that I found at The Bargain Shop for ten bucks - no need to spend obscene amounts of money on specialized equipment.  Oh yes, do not grease your pan.  I repeat DO NOT GREASE YOUR PAN!  The bread will not stick.  The tricky bit is turning your risen dough into your hell-hot pot without disaster striking.  Put the lid on.  Shove it into the oven for about half an hour.  Take the lid off and bake it some more (20 to 30 minutes).  The wheat germ (of whatever you used) might look a bit dark, but that's ok.  Dump the bread out.  Pick it up (with your oven mitts on, silly) and tap the bottom. If it sounds hollow, it's done.  Put it on a rack and wait.  And wait.  And wait.  When it's cool you can cut into it with a sharp serrated knife. You'll probably need to vacuum your kitchen afterwards because of all the crumbs, but it will be worth it.

It will look something like this:

Go make some.  You're welcome.