Crusty Bread

I love fresh bread. It's not packed full of enzymes to keep it fresh, it's full of flavour and you can use it in just about everything from onion soup to bread-y desserts.

Here's an altered version of Nigel Slater's bread. It makes a loaf about 10" around and quite high.

Ingredients:

4 cups flour
1 envelope quick-rise or instant yeast
2 tsp salt
2 cups water
Roughly 2 more cups flour.

Method:

Combine the flour, yeast and salt in a large mixing bowl.
Add the water and mix, resulting in an extremely soft and sticky dough.
Generously flour your cooking surface and tip the dough onto it.
Flour your hands and sprinkle some more flour onto the dough, enough so that it doesn't stick to you.
Knead the dough for about 10 minutes, adding flour when it gets too sticky.
After ten minutes the dough should be only a little tacky and form a neat ball, place back in the bowl and let rise covered in a warm place for an hour. (don't forget to flour the bowl a little to reduce sticking).

After an hour, bring the dough onto the floured surface again and knead a bit more - 2 or 3 minutes - and shape into a roundish, flattish ball.
Place it on your floured pizza stone or cookie sheet.
Dust it with flour, cover it again, and let it rise again for another hour. Heat the oven to about 500 degrees.

Once it has risen, uncover it and place it in the oven.
Bake at 500 for 12 minutes, then reduce the heat to 425 and bake another 20-25 minutes.

Once it's out of the oven, put it on a rack to cool and let stand for at least 10 minutes to settle.

I'd suggest then spreading some butter or margarine on it and eating it while still warm.

Chin-chin!