Flour Water Salt Yeast

    I made some of the best bread ever today!   The recipe and technique is from Flour Water Salt Yeast by Ken Forkish.  If you want to make great bread this book is loaded with information.  Maybe too much but the recipes reiterate the highlights.  The two round loaves were a single batch of his Saturday White Bread.  From Start to finish was about 8 hours of time, but 6 of that was rising and 1 was baking, the loves were cooked separately in a Dutch oven  for 30 minutes each with a 5 minute Dutch oven reheat in between.

    I look forward to trying some of his other recipes, especially the bacon bread in the back of the book with chopped bacon in the dough.   Yummmm.  He starts by mixing the flour and water by hand until it is mostly incorporated, then lets it sit for about 30 minutes.  Next sprinkle the salt and yeast on top and then fold the dough by hand a couple times, wetting your hand to help dissolve the salt and keep the dough from sticking to you too much.

After folding a couple times you pinch the dough into several small pieces with one hand, turning the container with your other hand.  Then folding a couple more times.  The whole pinching and fold in process takes about 5 minutes.  Then you let it sit, folding it twice int he next hour and a half and then let it raise for 5 hours.

Form it into two loaves, preheat the oven to 475 degrees with the Dutch oven in it for 45 minutes.  Then Bake the bread one loaf at a time for 30 minutes.  Remove, cool slightly and then eat it.  It is definately worth the wait.  

The temperature can make a difference, if you start with room temperature flour, you can use about 95 degree water which will get you into the 77 degree range once the mixing, folding and pinching is done.  My house is usually a little on the cool side, so my dough temp was low and I could have let it raise longer but I went for it anyway.

Now, Get in the Kitchen and Cook Something

Based on Ken Forkish's Saturday White Bread.

    1000 g Flour

    720 g Water

    21 g Salt

    4 g Yeast

1. Combine flour and water by hand until most of the dry flour is incorporated
2. Cover and let rest 30 minutes
3. Sprinkle flour and yeast on top of the dough and then fold the dough with one hand, pulling on one side of the dough and then folding it over the top.  
4. Then turn the bowl 1/4 turn and do it again.
5. Next pinch through the dough to divide it into 2 pieces, give the bowl a turn again and split both pieces in half, do it again splitting the four in halves.  Then one more time, at this point I found it hard to keep track but managed to get most of the pieces split and turned and mixed.
6. Then I gave it two folds, because I felt like it and covered it with plastic and let it sit 30 minutes
7. Give the dough 2 to 3 pull folds, turning the bowl 1/4 turn each time, cover and let rest 1 hour
8. Give the dough another 2 -3 pull folds and then cover and let sit until about tripled in size, about 3 and 1/2 hours
9. Dust the counter with a little flour and place the dough on it.
10. Divide the dough in half and gently form it into a smooth round ball by folding it down on itself with a seam on the bottom.
11. If you have a baneton basket or bread mold you can use it as I did for one loaf.  make sure it is floured well if it is not seasoned, I have used mine about 5 times and it is finally almost seasoned.  I need to use it more. and I will.  The second I left on the counter and scored the top.
    
12. Preheat the oven with a Dutch oven in it to 475 degrees.  Let the dough raise for about 45 minutes or so until almost doubled and when you press down with a finger, it leaves a dent.
13. Carefully put one loaf in the Dutch oven, put the lid back on and bake for 30 minutes.
14. Remove from the oven and place the loaf on a rack to cool
15. Put the Dutch oven back in the oven for 5 minutes to reheat
    
16. Carefully transfer the second loaf to the Dutch oven and bake 30 minutes.
17. Remove bread and cool on a rack
18. Enjoy!