Homemade Artisan Bread (With or Without Dutch Oven) | Sally's Baking Addiction

Hi, I'm Sally from Sally’s Baking Addiction and today I’m teaching you how to make homemade crusty bread loaves.

This is a very simple recipe and bread beginners should start here. There is no kneading or special shaping required, you don't even mixer or any specific hands and there are only four ingredients in the dough.

You can find this full recipe + all of my success tips and tricks on my blog - Sally’s Baking Addiction.com.

The first step is to mix the dough ingredients together, you can add different flavorings and herbs to this dough if desired - see my recipe notes for that. 

The dough was dry and shaggy at first but will eventually come together especially if you use your hands to help. Shape the sticky dough into a ball, cover tightly, and then let it rest at room temperature for 2 to 3 hours.

After 2 to 3 hours, the dough has expanded. You could begin loosely shaping and baking the dough at this point but I strongly recommend that you let the dough rest in a refrigerator for at least 12 hours and up to 3 days.

This time in a refrigerator develops even more delicious texture and flavor. This requires no extra work from you, all you’re doing is saving the dough for later.

After refrigerating, divide the cold dough in half and loosely shaped into two loaves on a baking pan sprinkled with the little cornmeal and/or flour.

Loosely cover the doughs and let them rest for about 45 minutes. We will bake the bread on this prepared baking pan but if you have a pizza stone, you could use that instead - see my recipe notes. During this time, begin preheating the oven to a hot 475 Fahrenheit.

Now let’s square the loaves with a few shovel cuts and then bake until golden brown.

Slightly crispy with an unbelievably chewy crust and sought airy interior - this homemade bread does not disappoint and it's really not that difficult to make.

You can also watch this video on her Youtube Channel: Sally's Baking Addiction