Crusty Italian Bread

This makes beautiful, crusty bread with a crisp crust and a warm, soft interior. It’s as good as anything you’ll ever get from any bakery.

Give it a try and you’ll never go back to buying bread.

• Add the the water, sugar & yeast to the dough mixer bowl and whisk (by hand) until dissolved. Let sit for 10 minutes.
• Put the dough hook on the mixer, add about half the flour and start the mixer on slow.
• Once the ingredients have been mixed, add the salt. You need to add the salt after the yeast/water has been mixed into the dough, since the salt retards the action of the yeast.
• Increase speed to medium
• Add the rest of the flour now.
• Keep kneading for another 5 minutes then transfer to 4 Quart plastic bucket with a snap-on lid, and let rise in a cool place (about 50°–60°) for 12 hours, or until doubled in size.
• When doubled, reach into the bucket, grab one side of the dough, give it a quick pull until it’s about 3x the length it was, and fold it over. Rotate 90° and repeat until you have done this 4 times.
• Let rise again until double.
• Generously flour a cutting board and dump all the dough from the bucket onto the board. Cut dough into two pieces, form each piece into a loaf shape and place on a pizza peel dusted with corn meal for the final rise, dust with a little cornmeal and cover with plastic wrap.
• Put pizza stone or baking steel into the oven and preheat to 425°F for at least an hour.
• Once it’s almost doubled in size, slide each loaf into the oven and make some slashes across the top with a very sharp knife, lame or razor blade. The slashes allow the bread to expand in the oven.
• Add 2 cups of hot water to small pan and place on the bottom of your oven.
• Bake for about 30 minutes, or until golden brown and sounds hollow when thumped.

Makes (2) large loaves of bread