fabulous easy bread

made some really good bread this weekend, it's from a danish t.v. cooking show called "buns of steel" that's currently airing on DR2--8 episodes, all about bread.  this one's called "nix pille," which means "don't touch."

that means it's easy peasy.

don't touch bread

1.5 cups lukewarm water

1 pinch of yeast (she uses a shockingly small amount--i didn't quite dare, i used two pinches of those blocks of fresh yeast--maybe a teaspoon of dried if that's what you have)

1 pinch of salt

2 full cups of flour  (can be a mix of wheat or spelt flour and plain, normal flour)

mix the water and the yeast together in a large bowl that's suitable for leaving the dough in to rise, then add the flour and salt. stir it only enough to mix the ingredients together. it's a very wet dough. don't be alarmed by this.

cover with a towel and leave it alone for at least 18 hours, just on the counter, not in an especially cool or warm spot. it will get really bubbly. after 18+ hours, turn it out onto a floured surface and work it a bit--not heavy kneading, just fold it over onto itself a number of times, then leave it to rest again on the conter for 20 minutes.

after 20 minutes, fold it in onto itself until it forms a rather tight ball and you feel you can't fold it in on itself again. take care not to add too much flour during this process, just flour your hands to keep them from getting too sticky, but remember this is a rather wet dough.  place the dough ball into a greased bowl and set it in a warm place to rise. 

when it's double in size, heat a heavy dutch oven or other lidded pot in the oven to 250C (that's probably close to 400F), then put your dough into the heated pot, place the lid on and bake for 30 minutes. remove the lid and finish baking (another 10-15 was what it took in my oven). 

it made a bread very like the consistency of sinna's famous bread. and i didn't even get a chance to photograph it because it was gobbled down so fast. sabin ate a good 3/4 of the loaf herself. i've already got batch #2 bubbling away in a bowl--this time i used half spelt flour and half ordinary.  it's easy and delicious.

these pictures have nothing to do with the recipe, i just don't like to post without pictures. the bottom ones are through the viewfinder of my rolleicord TLR out at buresø. that snow's already gone after how warm it was today.

stuffed bread

stuffed bread

1 pkg. yeast
1 T honey
1 C warm water
1 glug (T+) olive oil

Mix together and let it stand for 5 minutes until the yeast starts to bubble up a bit.

Add:

2+ C organic flour (italian tipo 00 is best for bread)
1 tsp. salt
I say 2+ cups of flour, because you have to add enough so that it's dough consistency and this can vary by the barometric pressure/humidity of the day. Sometimes it takes less than 2C and sometimes nearly 3, I don't know why, but it's a fact.

Let it rise 'til it triples in size. Turn it out on the countertop and knead it a bit, then roll it into a loaf as if you were going to make a baguette, then use a rolling pin to flatten and stretch it 'til it's about 2' long and 8+" wide. then arrange the toppings in the middle, leaving enough dough on both sides so you can close it around the fillings and crimp the edges together.

filling:

5-6 slices parma ham
3-4 medium chorizo sausages, separated into bit-size bits (buy the soft kind that you can take out of their skin, not the hard kind) (any other sausage will work as well--just so it's a kind you can take out of its skin and it's soft and you can pull it apart into little bite-sized pieces)
½ jar of grilled artichokes in oil
1+ C grated prima donna (or other salty) cheese
1+ C grated organic maasdamer cheese
3 eggs--these i placed evenly along the toppings, then smashed them and spread them across, it also helped seal the edges of the bread.

close the bread by bringing the edges together and rolling it shut. it usually ends up a horseshoe shape because it's too big to fit in the oven otherwise--your oven being bigger, you may be able to just leave it long. sabin grated a bunch of extra cheese because she thought it was fun and i sprinkled that on top. that was delicious!

bake 30-ish minutes at 350°F/175°C or until it looks golden and done.

we ate this for dinner, piping hot out of the oven. served with a yummy salad, it's a perfect meal in itself.

you can substitute other cheeses--i'd just advise using 2 kinds because it tastes more interesting that way. you can also use bacon rather than parma ham. and any other kind of sausage. it's really up to you how you want to stuff it. i've made this many times with many different fillings, but this is probably the best one i've ever made.

enjoy!