E-Z bread

I've seen so many food bloggers post beautiful home-made breads, that I felt it was really about time my boyfriend and I jumped on the bandwagon and gave it a try ourselves. Plus my boyfriend likes bread and butter more than the average person, so the idea of bread fresh from the oven was enough to convince him that this was a worthwhile use of our time. He found these instructions on YouTube for "easy bread", so named because there is no kneading involved. In fact, once the dough is formed, it is barely handled at all.

Recipe courtesy of the YouTube video linked above:

1) combine 3 cups of flour, 1 & 1/2 cups of water, 1/4 tsp yeast and 2 tsp salt in a large bowl

2) cover bowl with plastic bag and let sit overnight

3) on a floured surface, stretch the dough in one direction then fold into thirds, repeat in the other direction (this is where the YouTube video will probably be helpful)

4) place in a pie pan, cover, and let rise for another 2 hours

5) bake 10 minutes at 500, 10 minutes at 450 then 10 minutes at 350 (crust should be browned and hard)

For our first go at this, I think our bread came out pretty good. It was a touch on the dense side, and would have been better if it had risen a bit more. We are thinking that we need to buy better yeast (not this sketchy instant yeast that comes in packets) and this will make all the difference next time.

More importantly, it tastes delicious, especially when accompanied by a generous helping of butter.