Ingredients: |
Ingredients: - 3/4 tbsp. yeast
- 1/2 tbsp. sea salt
- 1/2 tbsp. sugar
- Roughly a tablespoon or so of any herbs you want (I like a bit of rosemary, thyme, oregano, and black pepper)
about 1 1/2 cups lukewarm water
1/4 cup olive oil
3 1/4 cups of bread flour
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Directions: |
Directions:In a bowl mix yeast, salt, sugar and herbs. Pour in water and whisk it together
Add olive oil and whisk in.
Add and stir it all up. Make sure there aren't any dry bits (I usually wet my hands with water and move it around, to make sure there's no extra dry flour at the bottom.) Don't be afraid to add a bit more water if you need to.
Once it's all mixed up, cover it with a lid (not airtight - I generally just put a dinner plate over the bowl I mixed the dough in) and let it set for 2 hours. You can also refrigerate it (make sure you cover it with clingwrap or something), but give it at least 3 hours to rise.
Making the loaf
On a pizza peel (or cutting board or whatever) sprinkle some corn meal to keep the dough from sticking.
Form the dough into a loaf, and let sit for 20 minutes. If the dough has been in the refrigerator, give it an extra 20 minutes to sit BEFORE you form it into a loaf. While the dough is sitting, put a baking stone and a small pan (for water) in to the oven, and turn the oven to 450º.
After 20 minutes, put some flour on the bread knife, sprinkle some on the bread, and make 3 slashes across the dough, or a cross. I like to put some olive oil and herbs, black pepper, garlic, that kind of thing on it as well, it makes the crust delicious.
If you put the corn meal on the pizza peel, the dough should slide right off onto the baking stone. Put 1 cup of water in the pan (to keep the bread from drying out).
Should take roughly half an hour to bake, pull it out when the crust is golden brown. Let it sit and cool for a bit before cutting into it (preferably on some kind of rack, if you have one), then slice and dig in. |
This recipe for Alex's Olive Oil Yeast Bread is from