Homemade crusty Italian bread recipe

From time unknown Italian breads have been one of the staple foods in Italy and as compared to any other European city bread baking in Italy is considered a serious affair. The Italians typically have their own standards when it comes to bread-making. The basic recipe for a standard family-size whole bread consists of an unsweetened, yeast-leavened thick oblong loaf with tapering ends made up of salt, flour, water and yeast. It gained quick popularity around the world during the 18th century.

Following is a recipe for homemade crusty Italian bread:

Ingredients:

2 ½ teaspoons of active dry yeast

1 ¼ cups of warm water

3 cups all purpose flour

2 teaspoons sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon olive oil

cornmeal

Method:

• Take a quarter cup of warm water in a bowl. Check the temperature of the water. It should not be too cold that it fails to activate the yeast or too hot such that it kills the yeast.
• Dissolve the yeast in the warm water.
• Wait for bubbles to appear in the water and for the yeast to settle in the water. When the bubbles appear pour the rest of the warm water into the bowl.
• Transfer this mixture into a mixing bowl and add the flour, sugar and salt into it.
• Stir well until all the ingredients blend evenly.
• Before you add oil to the mixture make sure that the flour is well mixed in the water to form a soft dough.
• Now add the oil and shift it to a nice clean wooden surface to knead.
• Stretch the dough away from you and fold it back. Repeat this process a few times.
• Beat the dough on the surface a few times as well. This will encourage more gluten formation that would give you lighter and airier bread.
• Keep kneading the dough until it attains a smooth and silky texture. Work on it with both your hands for good results.
• Once the dough is kneaded well, place it in a bowl containing oil. Coat it all over with the oil.
• Tightly wrap the dough with a plastic wrap and allow it to rise.
• Keep the wrapped dough aside in a warm place for about 2 hours until it expands to double its size.
• Preheat the oven to 425 degrees Celsius. Either use a pizza stone or a baking sheet placed upside down on the bottom rack, depending on the availability of the two.
• Unwrap the dough and place it on a floured surface and punch the dough to remove most of the air out.
• Roll out the dough into a loaf and cut them into pieces of desired size. Ideally the length could be anywhere around 6-9 inches.
• You can cover the dough with cornmeal which is an option to avoid the dough sticking to the plastic wrapped on the baking tray. Once wrapped allow the dough to rise again for another 40 minutes.
• Unwrap the plastic and make incisions on the dough with lengths of your choice.
• Introduce the unbaked bread into the oven with a considerable space between each loaf so that they have room to rise while baking.
• Bake for 10 minutes at 425 degrees then turn down the temperature to 400 degrees and bake for 25-30 minutes.
• To ensure you get a crusty bread place a pan of water at the bottom of the oven. The steam will keep a skin from forming on the surface of the bread, giving the bread more time to rise. This in turn makes the crust crispier.

Thus you get a perfect homemade crusty Italian bread right out of your own kitchen oven ready to be served with olive oil, butter, balsamic vinegar or marinara sauce dips.

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