Thursday, April 10, 2014

peasant bread for idiots

We interrupt this scattered blog that in 13 years has gone from an angsty college girl to a I HAVE KIDS LOOK AT THEM ALL THE TIMES blog - with a recipe.

I know, I know, I am the LAST person on earth who should be giving out any advice about food.  But if you think about it, if there is one recipe out there that even I can do, it has to be foolproof.  I am awful at cooking and eating everyday food - most of my few successful food thingys are party appetizers.  You can't live on appetizers (I've tried).  But I can do bread!  Not healthy bread, but yummy nonetheless.  So when I saw this recipe on Pinterest for peasant bread that was supposedly supersuper easy, I had to try it.  The blogger goes into such detail it almost overwhelmed me, but she was thorough enough that I have become an expert at it.  That whole artisan bread in 5 minutes thing seems nice, but it still feels like a lot of prep to me.  Yes, I'm that lazy.  But this is no-knead, done in 2 and half hours from start to finish.  And it's so flipping good.

But not healthy.

If you want to learn how to make it all fancy-like, go check out Alexandra Cooks where she goes into every detail possible and has way more appetizing photos.  This is how a super lazy person does it. With a coupla iPhone pictures because yes, I'M THAT LAZY.

1. Lightly mix 2 teaspoons active-dry yeast, 1 tablespoon of sugar and 2 cups of warm water in a bowl.  Set your timer for 5 minutes  because there is nothing more annoying that finding a bowl of hyper yeast that you forgot about an hour ago.

2. After 5 minutes,  add 2 teaspoons salt and 4 cups of flour.  What kind of flour?  Who the heck knows.  I use the white stuff I find at Aldi.  That's how I roll.

3.  Stir up the everything till it's all blended in one unattractive blob.  Put it in your oven and turn it on for 350 - for ONE MINUTE ONLY (I recommend the timer too).  This just gets the oven nice and slightly warm enough to help the bread rise faster.

4.  Let it rise for at least an hour.  2 at the most.

5. Get a 3 quart pyrex bowl ( or a few small ones, I don't care) and SLATHER the inside with butter.  Coat it nice and thick.  I use margarine because I'm not a butter snob.  I'm actually butter illiterate and I'm cool with that.

6. Get the risen dough out, deflate it a bit by poking it for a sec (the professionals say "punch it down" but that has always seemed weird to me.), then scoop it out with a big spoon and plop it in the buttered bowl(s).  This is what it'll look like:


7.  Let that rise for about 30 minutes.  It'll look like this:


8. Take a small amount of kosher salt and sprinkle it over the top.  Not a thick layer, just enough to add some flavor to the top since the sides are gonna be SO BUTTERIFFIC.

9.  Put it in a 425 degree oven for 15 minutes, then down to 375 for another 15 or so.  It'll look like this:


10. Flip the bowl over and plop it out onto a cutting board.  If you did you buttering job right, it'll slip out perfectly.  THERE IS NOT SUCH THING AS TOO MUCH BUTTER/MARGARINE.  It'll have the most awesome buttery crust on it:


11.  Slice and eat.


It is so good with fondue, actually.  And the next day grilled sandwiches are divine.  I like to butter one side and fry it up in a pan for a toast-y breakfast the next day too.

If you try it, you gotta tell me how it went.  WonderGirl begs for me to make this all the time - which makes me happy, since the other thing she begs is for mac and cheese out of the box instead of my homemade stuff (which is one of the few things I know how to make from scratch, sob).  Anywho, back to the I HAVE CHILDREN LOOKITLOOKITLOOTKIT tomorrow.

4 comments:

Tarzan said...

Very impressive. I've always wondered how round bread was made.

Jane said...

"Punch it down" is a great way to relieve stress and release the gluten/elasticity of the bread.
If it's not that kind of bread then poking it is just fine.

Anonymous said...

YUMMY. Can't wait to try it. This visual learner thanks you for the photos.

Elizabeth said...

Oh my heck. You posted a recipe. And it wasn't for a cheese quesadilla or fondue.

Awesome.

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