Rustic Italian Artisan Bread

This is my new obsession, This bread is crazy good and crazy easy! you can start it the day before and use the dough for up to 14 days!

This recipe is modified from the book: Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day:
The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking
By Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois

Both of these links are worth checking out. The you tube video is a demonstration.
/www.artisanbreadinfive.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMxJgIpe38Q



Master Recipe: Boule (Artisan Free-Form Loaf)
Makes four 1-pound loaves. The recipe is easily doubled or halved.
3 cups lukewarm water
2 tablespoons yeast
1 rounded tablespoon kosher or other coarse salt
6-1/2 cups un-sifted, unbleached, all-purpose white flour, measured with the scoop-and-sweep method
Cornmeal for pizza peel

For all my Utah peeps: for high altitudes Decrease the yeast to 2 teaspoons and increase the salt to 1 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon.

Mixing and Storing the Dough:
1. In a stand mixer or a re-sealable lidded (not airtight) plastic food container add warm water (100 degrees), yeast, salt and flour.
2. Attach dough hook or use wooden spoon and incorporate all ingredients. Do not knead.
3. Option one: Allow dough to sit on counter 2 hours, then refrigerate for 5 additional hours and use. Or option two: refrigerate immediately and use dough the next day.
Store the dough in the refrigerator in your lidded (not airtight) container and use it over the next 14 days: You’ll find that even one day’s storage improves the flavor and texture of your bread. This maturation continues over the 14-day storage period. Refrigerate unused dough in a lidded storage container (again, not airtight). Cut off and shape more loaves as you need them. The dough can also be frozen in 1 pound portions in an airtight container and defrosted overnight in the refrigerator prior to baking day.

On Baking Day
1. Prepare the pizza peel by sprinkling it liberally with cornmeal.
2. Sprinkle the surface of your refrigerated dough with flour. Pull up the dough and cut off a 1- pound (grapefruit-size) piece of dough, using a serrated knife or kitchen shears.
3. Shape the loaf, do not knead. Gently stretch the surface of the dough around to the bottom on all four sides, rotating the ball a quarter –turn as your go. Most of the dusting flour will fall off; it’s not intended to be incorporated into the dough. This should take 30 to 60 seconds. The bottom of the loaf will not be beautiful, but the top should be smooth.
4. Rest the loaf on the pizza peel and let it rise for 40 minutes. You may not see a significant amount of change in the loaf-the loaf will continue to grow in the oven.
5. Twenty minutes before baking, preheat the oven to 450 degrees F, with a baking stone placed on the middle rack. Place an empty broiler tray below on another rack.
6. Dust the top of the loaf liberally with flour (this allows the knife to cut more easily through the dough), and slash a 1/4- inch – deep cross, scallop or tic-tac-toe pattern into the top, using a serrated bread knife.
7. Fill a measuring cup with a cup of hot water and set it by the oven. Place the loaf in the oven by sliding it off the pizza peel onto the preheated baking stone. Quickly, but carefully, pour the hot water into the broiler tray and close the door. Set timer for 25 to 30 minutes. You are cooking with steam for at least the first 10 to 15 minutes of the baking process. This will help to form the hard, crackling crust of artisan bread that we’re familiar with.
8. Remove loaf with pizza peel and let cool.
To achieve a sour dough taste, hold over some of the dough from batch to batch and mix it with your new recipe of dough. Soon you will have a sour dough flavor.