Another Artisan Bread

Um, interesting.

Ingredients

• 2c white flour
  
• 1c wheat flour
  
• about 1/4c wheat germ
  
• 1.5tsp salt
  
• 1/4tsp yeast
  
• 1c water plus a little - maybe as much as an extra 1/4c?
  

Combine all the dry ingredients, then add the water and mix. I made the dough really moist, so it's not really something I could stir with my hands - I had to use a spatula. Cover the bowl with cling wrap and let sit for about 16 hours. After the time passes, pour the risen dough out onto a very well floured counter and sprinkle liberally with flour. Fold it around as best you can - I used a spatula so it wouldn't stick to my hands and so I could keep it off the counter. It was actually kind of fun. Then I put it in a bread pan and covered again with cling wrap for 2 hours to rise again. At 1.5 hours, preheat the oven to 500, then bake the bread until it sounds hollow - about 40 or 50 minutes.

Thoughts: This was easy to make, if time consuming. The loaf is a little heavy - it maybe didn't rise all that well? So that needs some work. I attribute it to not having a preheated baking dish - it needs to really be on something like a pizza stone so that it starts out hot through the whole thing. As it was, the top baked before the middle, so it didn't get all that much spring. Even so, the flavor of this loaf is really good. I would definitely make this again, but maybe the next time I'll add more flour so it's less wet (only after the 16 hour rise) and then use a pizza peel and put it on the pizza stone at 500.

Disaster Index: 1/10