Dutch Oven Bread

I am really starting to enjoy baking bread, it's so easy and satisfying! The weekend I decided to make my lasagna I thought late Friday night "you know what, I want some homemade bread with it."  Sure it was like 11PM, but that's the beauty of this bread recipe, you just throw all the ingredients together and let the dough sit over night so it becomes nice and fermented. Then just turn it out, give it a few little kneads, throw it in the dutch oven and waaaallaaaaa homemade bread! Give it a try, you won't regret it!

Ingredients 

• 1 package active dry yeast
• 1 1/2 cups warm water
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• 3 cups all-purpose flour + some for dusting

Directions

In a large bowl, dissolve yeast into water. Add the flour and salt, stirring until blended. The dough will sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let dough rise over night (18 hours preferably) at room temperature. 

The dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it. Sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest for 15 min. 

Shape into a ball, using more flour if necessary to keep from sticking. Place a clean dish towel flat on a work surface and sprinkle with flour. Place the dough on the dish towel, sprinkle the top of the dough with flour and place another dish towel on top. Let rise for 1 to 2 hour or until doubled in size. 

About 20 min. before the dough is ready, preheat the oven to 475 degrees. Place dutch oven in the oven as it heats, as to heat the dutch oven. When dough is ready, carefully remove dutch oven from oven and remove lid. With the seem side up, brush the outside of the bread with some olive oil and sprinkle the top with Kosher salt. Cut a few 1/2" deep slits in the top, in the design you want...I forgot to do that. Carefully place dough in the dutch oven, again seem side up. If need be shake the pot to redistribute the bread, it may not look beautiful but it will look great when baked. 

Cover and bake for 30 minutes. Remove lid and bake another 15-20 minutes, until the loaf is beautifully browned and sounds hollow when tapped. Carefully remove bread from Dutch oven and let it cool on rack for at least an hour. Slice and enjoy!

Song of the Recipe

Nothing says bread baking like some blue grass and fiddle shredding! Not the most famous group, but they are really awesome and you should check them out. 

Basic Pizza

So I have a beef...I have a beef with the companies that make and sell pizza stones. They advertise them like the best thing in the world and make it sound like they will make your pizza turn into delicious brick oven pizza. Well people, let me save you from this, they suck...plan and simple. You may love them, but I hate them and I will tell you why. The thing that makes brick oven pizza special is a crap load of heat, a lot more heat then our little home ovens can produce. The problem with these pizza stones is that they are impossible to get hot enough to make a really good pizza. So here is the solution...metal. Metal is way more conductive, it heats faster and it heats more evenly. I've read that some people get sheets of aluminum cut to the dimensions of their oven, then they heat that as hot as their oven can go and then get it even hotter with the broiler. This is the ideal solution and you will be spittin' pizza's out of your oven faster than you can say....I don't know, some big word...But, since I didn't have a big sheet of aluminum laying around, here's the way I did it. Enjoy!

Ingredients

• 1 package active dry yeast
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 1 cup warm water
• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups Mozzarella
• 1/2 cup pizza sauce
• Pizza topping(s) of choice

Directions

Pre-heat oven to 450 degrees F

In a small bowl mix the yeast, sugar and warm water. Let stand for 5 minutes until yeast is activated and foaming. In a large bowl, combine the flour, olive oil, salt and yeast mixture. Mix until dough forms. If dough is to sticky, add in 1 Tbsp of flour at a time until elastic, vice versa with 1 Tbsp of water if it is to dry. Cover with a dish towel and let rise in a warm area until double in sized, about 30 min. Once dough has formed, knead on a floured service until smooth and elastic. 

Roll out pizza dough on a metal pizza pan or, in my case, a metal baking sheet. Don't put on any toppings yet, put dough in the oven and bake for 7-10 min until dough is starting to brown. Remove the crust from the baking sheet onto a pizza peel (You don't need a pizza peel, just put the crust on something so you can transfer it back into the oven). Add sauce, cheese and toppings of your choice. Slide the pizza into the oven, directly on the oven rack. Bake for another 7-10 min until cheese is melted, I hit it with the broiler for about 30 second to brown the cheese. 

Song of the Recipe

Dutch Oven Rosemary Bread

This past week for my birthday I received a gift card for Kohl's that was supposed to be for clothes....but then I passed a beautiful navy blue, food network dutch oven. Clothes?? Who needs clothes?! I need a dutch oven! Not to mention the color was perfect for my Penn State allegiance. I saw a couple weeks ago a friend of mine make a loaf of bread in their dutch oven and I thought that would be the perfect thing to try out. I have always been a huge fan of the rosemary bread that Wegman's make, so I figured that I would try to make that in my brand spankin' new dutch oven. Enjoy!

Ingredients 

• 3 Tbsp fresh rosemary, chopped
• 4 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted
• 1 Tbsp olive oil, plus more for the dutch oven
• 1 cup warm water
• 1 tsp active dry yeast
• 20 oz. flour (a little over 4 cups)
• 2 tsp table salt
• Kosher salt for sprinkling

Directions

In a small bowl combine the chopped rosemary, melted butter and 1 tablespoon of olive oil and mix together. Measure out the water in a liquid measuring cup, add in the yeast, mix, and let set for about 5 min until it starts to foam.

Combine all of the ingredients in a large bowl.  If you have a stand mixer, fit it with the dough hook and let it go for 10 minutes.  If you are mixing by hand, stir with a spoon until everything is fully combined, then turn out onto a floured surface and knead until it is smooth and elastic. You may need to add water or flour depending on the consistency of the dough. If it's to dry, add water in 1 Tbsp at a time or if it's to wet, add in flour 1 Tbsp at a time.  It’s ready when you can pass the windowpane test - tear off a small ball of dough and give it a little stretch in a few opposing directions.  If you can make it translucent without tearing it, it’s ready.

Return the dough to an oiled bowl and cover with a clean dish towel. Let it rise, at room temperature, until it is doubled in size, about 90 min. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Once dough has risen, shape it back into a ball, score the top of the dough with an X shape and then set aside (when it bakes, the X will give it a nice design).

Generously grease  a 6 quart dutch oven with olive oil. Place the dough in the center of the dutch oven and drizzle with olive oil and then sprinkle kosher salt on top. Place the lid on the dutch oven and bake for 30 min. Remove lid and bake for another 15-30 min, or until golden. 

Carefully remove the bread from the pot and let cool for 10 min. 

I decided to make an egg sandwich with it...I was craving one :)