This recipe is adapted from the book, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, by Jeff Hertzberg. When I say adapted, I mean that I’ve tried a quite a few variations over quite a long period of time and, now that I feel I’ve really nailed my method, I went back to check the original recipe and discovered it’s almost exactly like what’s in the book. Go figure.
Still, experimenting helps a person learn by testing the parameters. In the end, I guess I wound up being a little like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. I found out that “there’s no place like home.”
Ingredients:
- 454 grams (1 lb.) All-Purpose or Bread Flour
- ¼ tsp. Active Dry Yeast
- 2 tsp. Kosher Salt
- 50 grams (½ cup) Parmesan Cheese, fresh grated
- 75 grams (½ cup) Sun Dried Tomatoes, oil-packed, julienne cut
- 340 grams (1 ⅔ cups) Water
Directions:
Step 1: Combine dry ingredients. Add grated cheese and sun-dried tomatoes and mix until coated with flour. Add water and mix by hand just until the mix holds together without working the dough. You do not want to develop the gluten.
Step 2: Set aside in a food-grade container, cover with plastic wrap or a lid and ferment at room temperature for 24-36 hours.
Step 3: Dust your surface with flour and shape the dough into a ball. Transfer to a baking sheet covered with parchment paper or a silicone mat.
Step 4: Preheat the oven to 450°F. Bake for 35 minutes. Use a spray bottle to give 15 spritzes of water in the oven every five minutes. This helps develop a chewy crust. Turn the bread around half-way through the bake in order to insure even baking. Let cool on a wire rack.
Schmecken! 