Easy Bread Recipe for Quarantine

While I’ve tried tons of new recipes over the past few weeks, there’s one thing I’ve remade over and over again. Made up of just five ingredients, it is one of the easiest, most delicious, and rewarding recipes. 

That’s right, you guessed it. 

Bread.

*Cue Oprah gif*

With so many changes to our lives over the past few weeks, it’s been nice to keep a somewhat consistent routine. Saturdays we go to the Farmers’ Market for local produce and fresh flowers. And once a week, I bake bread—it’s become a ritual. 

Bonus: For those keeping track, here’s my little pink mixer update: 

9 loaves of bread

8 dozen cookies

2 dozen Carrot Cake Cupcakes

2.5 dozen Baileys Brownie Bars

1 dozen Espresso Chip Muffins

6 dozen Greek Easter Cookies (recipe here) 

4 dozen Triple “C” Cookies

3 dozen "Paw" Nut Butter Treats

Some weeks I find myself making two or three extra loaves to share with friends.

After four weeks of practice, I can proudly say I’ve nailed the rustic loaf. 

Don’t get me wrong, I love sourdough. I just wasn’t ready for the commitment of keeping a starter alive.

I started with a slightly modified version of Life As a Strawberry’s Crusty French Bread recipe. Most notably, I use King Arthur bread flour, instead of all-purpose flour. While all-purpose flour has been hard to find, I was lucky enough to find plenty of bread flour and yeast. 

The great part about making bread, other than eating it and how your apartment immediately smells like a bakery (AKA actual heaven), is that you can play with the recipe until you get it just right. 

If you want to try your hand at making bread, here are a few tools I recommend to help get you started. 

• Stand mixer (with bread hook attachment) 

• Kitchen scale (not necessary, but nice to have) 

• 4 to 6-quart Dutch oven

• 9-inch proofing basket (medium-sized bowl works too)

  • I use this one, but here’s a similar option available on Amazon.

• Parchment paper

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Rustic French Bread 

Ingredients:

• 2 ¼  teaspoons (9g) active dry yeast

• 1 teaspoon (4g) sugar

• 1 ¼  cups warm water (300g)

• 1 ½  teaspoons (10 grams) kosher salt

• 2 ½  to 3 ½  cups bread flour (360g) plus extra for dusting

Directions: 

• Combine yeast, sugar, and warm water in the bowl of a stand mixer. Let the yeast proof for about 5 minutes, until the mixture is foamy.

• Add kosher salt and flour to the bowl. Mix with your hands or a sturdy spatula, or mix on low speed with your bread hook attachment until all flour is incorporated and the dough has just started to pull away from the sides of the bowl. 

• Lightly flour all sides of your dough and turn it over inside the mixing bowl to coat with flour on all sides.

• Cover with a clean tea towel and let rise on the counter for about 1 hour, until the dough has doubled in size.

• Once the dough has risen, lightly flour a large cutting board.

• Tip the dough out of the bowl and onto the cutting board. Sprinkle a bit of flour across the top of the dough, then begin shaping it into a round loaf. Pull each corner of the dough in towards the center and repeat until the dough feels tight and begins to resist your folds. Flip the dough over and tap it into a round loaf. 

• Flour a proofing basket or a medium bowl and place your loaf into it seam-side down. Cover with a tea towel and let rise another 30 minutes while the oven is preheating.

• While bread is rising, place an empty dutch oven (with the lid on) in your oven and heat to 460°.

• When the oven is at temperature, use oven mitts to pull the dutch oven out and remove the lid.

• Lay a piece of parchment paper down on your counter and tip your bread dough gently out of the proofing basket onto the parchment paper (seem side up!)

• Use the sides of the parchment to lift the bread up and place it into the hot Dutch oven.

• Put your oven mitts back on, place the dutch oven lid back on the pot, and slide back into the oven.

• Bake for 30 minutes.

• After 30 minutes, remove the lid from your dutch oven. Continue cooking the bread, uncovered, for 10-15 minutes more until the bread has deepened in color.

• Use oven mitts to pull the pot out of your oven. 

• Use a long spatula or the corners of your parchment paper to lift the bread out of the dutch oven and onto a cooling rack.

• Let cool for 30 minutes before cutting.

Happy baking!