Hearty Bread

Here’s the link to the original recipe: Tales of a Kitchen Witch: Basic Bread Recipe

She’s got amazing recipes, so feel free to peruse through them!

Anyway, I wanted something heavier, denser, and higher in protein, so I modified the recipe. This is the new ingredients list, all other instructions are the same. The output is less though, due to the heaviness of the bread. You get 3 good sized loaves from grapefruit sized chunks, not four.

I do not claim copyright to the instructions that follow(though I modified them to what I did specifically), but the ingredients used are my own. I will SCREAM to use the corn meal, it is a LIFE saver when sliding into the oven.

This recipe makes three approximately 1lb loaves.

3 c lukewarm water
1 1/2 tbsp granulated yeast
1 tbsp coarse kosher salt
3 1/2 c all purpose flour, measured carefully
1 1/2 c ground almond meal
1 1/2 c ground flax seed
cornmeal for the pan and cutting board/transfer plate
more flour for dusting

Mix:

Add yeast and salt to warm water in large bowl. Mix in flour- no kneading. I dump it into the water and mix until everything is incorporated using a spoon and my hands (you can do it by using a standing mixer as well). Cover with a towel and let rise approx 2 hours.

Bake:

When you want to bake: sprinkle dough with flour and cut off a grapefruit sized hunk with a serrated knife. It is VERY sticky dough- dust your hands with flour- stretch the dough and shape into a ball. Let it rest on something easy to slide it off of for 40 minutes- (I use a wooden cutting board) and make sure you sprinkled the surface with cornmeal or something to keep it from sticking.

20 minutes before baking, preheat oven to 450F – with a baking stone or even a cookie sheet on center rack. Place broiler tray on bottom rack. Dust the loaf with flour and slash the top with knife. Slide loaf into oven, then pour 1 c hot water into broiler pan. Bake 30 minutes until crust is nice and brown.

Cool completely before cutting.

I did NOT let it cool completely before cutting, but it had cooled significantly…it was just too good to not have right away. The original recipe called for 1 1/2 tbsp of sea salt, but I scaled it back because the result was a tad on the salty side when you use kosher salt, you can experiment with sea salt if you prefer.

Here’s a few pictures of the resulting loaves: