When I think of small town living, I picture a great community of quirky characters (à la Gilmore Girls), scenic landscapes, and bakery. I am pretty lucky that I am currently living with 2/3 but I do tend to complain about the distinct lack of a local bakery. Humph!
This week I came down with the cold that has been afflicting my fellow quirky town members, leaving me snuffly, exhausted, and grumpy. Oh the joy. Over the past week I had been craving a decadent chocolate cake that I had hoped to indulge with friends. Once I had contracted the cold of doom, I did not have the energy nor the chocolate desire I had once possessed. Still, my baking need was unfulfilled and my hunger for something warm from oven grew.
Here was my dilemma: I was short on ingredient stock, so my overall baking options were limited. I wanted to stay away from anything too sweet as sugar is doom to surviving a cold; and in that case lets eliminate dairy as well. I didn't have the energy to spend a lot of time stirring, kneading, rolling, or cutting. And my throat was very sore so it would preferably be something that I could save for the following day.
I looked through my recipe page and came across a deliciously crunchy bread recipe located on the Simply so Good website. This looked like something simple to make and that didn't require too much energy spent on my part. Once I saw that the dough needed 12-18 hours to rise, I was in!
One of the adjustments I made to the recipe was to add an extra cup of water. The dough was a bit too dry after the 1 1/2 cups was added. This is what I achieved after an extra cup was added.
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| I find it comforting to work with a sticky mess on days I feel like one. |
After basically dumping all the ingredients together and mixing them up, I was essentially done for the day! I promptly covered my dough and went into a NyQuil coma.
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| The recipe instructs you to cover with plastic wrap. I always enjoy covering my dough with a moist towel. I don't know why but it makes my dough feel a little more authentic.
I am such a fan of this recipe because I didn't think about the bread until the following day. I woke up, brewed some coffee and turned on the oven. The dough had probably been rising for about 19 hours, which turned out to be fine. Now that my coffee went down easily and my taste buds were active again, I knew that in about an hour I could truly enjoy some warm, crunchy bread with jam! Yum.
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| You can't really see the dough, but it is there! |
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| How beautiful |
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| Dream-like crusty bread |
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| Ta-da! |
I've used a few bread recipes in the past. A lot of them were time consuming, and some of them did not turn out as I had planned. I found myself wishing I had a traditional brick oven or something of the sort, because how else would I achieve that dream bread. Well, look no further. If a sickly person can make this, and you have the time/patients to wait it out, this recipe is a keeper!
