Kathryn's Boule

The Master Recipe- Boule (Artisan Free-Form Loaf)

Makes four 1-pound loaves. This recipe is easily doubled or halved.

3 cups lukewarm water

1 1/2 tablespoons granulated yeast (1 1/2 packets)

1 1/2 tablespoons salt

6 1/2 cups unsifted, unbleached, all-purpose white flour

cornmeal for pizza peel

Mix all together until moistened. Don't knead or overmix. Cover loosely and let rise 2-5 hours at room temperature. You are then ready to make bread - or store mixture in refrigerator up to 2 weeks (covered loosely).

On baking day, cut a grapefruit-sized piece of dough with a serrated knife. Sprinkle heavily with flour and form into a ball - do not knead. Pinch edges underneath and place on baking parchment or on a pizza peel sprinkled with cornmeal. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Let it rise (and warm up) for 40 minutes. Place on baking stone, cookie sheet or pizza pan and put in oven. Pour 1 cup water inbroiler pan to create steam. Bake for 30 minutes.

 

notes: I have been baking mine on a cookie sheet with parchment paper. When you mix it up, it's quite wet, so in the second rise I just let it rise on the parchment paper, then move the whole paper to the cookie sheet when I'm ready to bake.

 

I've been mixing in whatever I want to add (rosemary, thyme, garlic, olives, craisins, walnuts, etc) just after the flour. The one Lauren asked for was rosemary and thyme, probably about 1Tbl rosemary to half the recipe and bit less thyme, maybe 1/2Tbl  (Sorry, I don't always measure)

 

I also feel like getting 4 loaves out of it is too small, I usually do 3.

 

Sometimes I do part whole wheat, up to about a third of the flour whole wheat seems to work ok, not as well, but ok.

 

-Kathryn Blackburn