Dutch Oven Bread
Rustic, crunchy, made with real flour and yeast that requires no kneading make this loaf of bread easy and fun to make.
This is a by-far easier way to make bread than the gluten-free version I made and posted previously in the Kitchen Tapestry recipe for Dutch Oven Bread (GF). If gluten isn’t a problem for you, like it isn’t for 132 out of 133 people in the US, then I recommend this version. It has fewer ingredients, fewer steps, fewer hoops to jump through and takes less time. And while both breads taste delicious and even comparable when fresh out of the oven, the gluten-free version does not taste as good as this regular flour version does on warm-up over the next couple of days you’re enjoying it.
The author of this recipe is a person named Elizabeth Lindemann on a website called Bowl of Delicious. It seems her dad actually experimented a great deal with this recipe and its technique to get a great tasting, rustic, artisan bread out of a Dutch oven with a sheet of parchment paper.
Dutch Oven Bread
Ingredients
- 1- 1/2 cups warm water (about 100°F)
- 1/4 oz packet active dry yeast (like, Fleischmann's)
- 1/2 tsp fine sea salt
- 3- 1/4 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
Instructions
- In a large mixing bowl, combine the warm water, yeast and salt and whisk until all is completely dissolved.
- Add the flour and mix with a kitchen spoon until a sticky dough forms. Don't overwork it. Form the dough in the mixing bowl roughly into a ball.
- Cover the bowl with cling-wrap and allow to rest for 3 hours while the dough doubles in size.
- Put the Dutch oven with its lid on in the oven.
- Pre-heat the oven to 450°F.
- Leave the Dutch oven in the oven for at least 20 minutes after the oven comes up to temperature.
- Lay out a large sheet of parchment paper and dust with additional flour, then lay out the dough onto it. Form the dough into a loaf as best you can in a size and shape to fit into your Dutch oven.
- With a sharp knife, make three slits across the top of the loaf of dough.
- Take out the Dutch oven from the oven and carefully remove the lid. Picking up the sides of the parchment paper, put the paper holding the dough into the Dutch oven and then return the lid. It's okay if some of the parchment paper is hanging outside of the lid.
- Place the Dutch oven in the center of the oven and bake 35 minutes.
- Remove the lid and bake an additional 5-10 minutes until the loaf is a golden brown.
- Remove the parchment paper with the loaf of bread and place the loaf on a cooling rack above a kitchen towel and allow to cool for 10 minutes before slicing and serving.
Notes
- Baking is more science than art. Measure your ingredients precisely. No eyeballing.
- Use a kitchen thermometer to ensure your water is right around 100°F. Colder, the yeast will not activate. Hotter will kill the yeast and render in inert.
- If your kitchen is chilly, warm your oven to 100°F, then turn it off and allow your dough to rest there.
- Cover the dough with cling-wrap during the resting phases.
- Use parchment paper to transfer the dough to your Dutch oven. There is no substitute.
