An Irish Girl makes Italian Bread

Here's an easy Italian bread recipe, adapted from a recipe I saw in Mother Earth News. This costs a mere fraction of store bought and is so easy to make. It's wonderful dipped in olive oil and makes awesome toast the next morning, and even works nicely for sandwiches. Best of all, there are only 4 ingredients: water, yeast, salt and flour. You can even refrigerate some of the dough in a sealed container and bake bread throughout the week as needed. I have done this and though the refrigerated dough does not make bread as tasty as the fresh dough, it's still good. The recipe is at the end.

I used a combination of unbleached white flour and a half whole wheat/half white four blend that I get from Costco. Sometimes I use all white, and sometimes I use all 1/2 and 1/2, but a combination seems to work the best for me.
Pour the water, yeast and salt in the mixer and let proof for a couple of minutes, then add the flour one cup at a time while the mixer is running. When the dough is pulling away from the sides of the bowl like this, it's done.

Then, just put it aside in a lightly greased bowl; no need to cover it.

While that's rising, clean up the mess, and prepare 2 pizza pans or cookie sheets by dusting them with cornmeal or flour. I use pizza pans with holes in the bottom and they work great. If you prefer, you can spray the pans with oil instead of using corn meal. Either way works fine!

After about 30-40 minutes, depending on how much whole wheat was used, the dough is ready to be formed into balls. This recipe makes 6 nice-sized loaves, so put 3 balls on each sheet.

After about 20 minutes, they look like this:

Turn the oven on to 425-450, and put a roasting pan in the bottom of the oven. Have about 4 cups of water boiling and ready when the loaves need to go in the oven. After another 20 minutes, lightly dust the loaves with some flour and slice the tops of the loaves. They are ready to bake. If you want, you can wet the loaves with water and sprinkle a mixture of seeds on top before they rise too much.

Now this is when I have everyone clear out of the kitchen for about 30 seconds, because the pans need to go in the oven, and immediately after, I pour the boiling water into the roasting pan that is on the bottom of the oven. Close the oven quickly! Bake for about 25-30 minutes.

Crispy crust on the outside, chewy bread on the  inside; what more could you ask for? My Italian husband (not to mention the children) devour this.

6 cups lukewarm water
3 Tablespoons yeast
3 Tablespoons salt
13 cups flour (for this batch, I used 8 cups of the 1/2 and 1/2 flour and 5 cups of unbleached white flour)

Mix as directed above. Bake at 450 25-30 minutes. Yields 6 loaves. Easy!