Buns In The Oven

One night in college I decided to stay in.

It was a Saturday night. We all had plans and at the very last, possible moment, I decided against it.

I sat in my apartment - most likely watching either Moulin Rouge or Titanic (or both) - and drank my wine as I listened to the partiers carry on outside.

Around 11:45 I sat straight up, paused whatever movie was on, and had the absolutely brilliant idea to try my hand at baking bread.

Not pumpkin chocolate chip bread. Or banana bread. Ohhhh no, I was ready to get my hands dirty in the big leagues. I wanted a full, crusty, steaming hot, loaf of scrumptious bread to top with all sorts of wonderful goodies.

I found a recipe online and had a crack at it. It turned out fantastic! My friends rolled in a few hours later and, as most who have indulged a bit too much on a night out are prone to do, they gobbled up every last crumb of that perfect bread.

That was four years ago, and I hadn't attempted to make bread again (even though I always knew I could) until the other day.

This is a French bread recipe from Le Creuset that I tweaked a bit because I'm too impatient to wait the required amount of raising/baking/etc time. It turned out absolutely delightful. To start, you'll need a big Le Creuset french oven...If it's not Le Creuset it will probably still do, just keep an eye on the heat and baking time.

Don't forget the lid!

This bread takes all of four ingredients - easypeezy!

3 cups unbleached white flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon of yeast
1 1/2 cups warm water

Get out a mixing bowl and combine the dry ingredients. Mix in the warm water slowly.

It will start to get a bit strenuous but hey, it's a workout!

Keep going until the water is entirely mixed in and you're left with a sticky ball of bread dough.

Now, wrap the bowl up in plastic wrap, cover with a towel, and leave for as long as you can keep your mind off of fresh, warm, buttery, salty bread covered in jam....

Not long, I presume.

The recipe calls for 2-4 hours of rest. Others say overnight. I had to dash out to work the next day so mine sat unattended for about 12 hours. When you come back, your dough will have doubled in size (hopefully) and you should see more than a few sticky pockets in the mixture.

Preheat your oven to 450 F. Pop your Le Creuset in and let it warm up with the oven.

You're gonna transfer that sticky baby out of the bowl now so make sure you've got a ton of flour down to keep it from dirtying your counter.

Get the whole lump covered in flour and mold it into a ball.

Or a heart, if you'd rather! ;)

Take your toasty Le Creuset out of the oven (with mitts!!!!!!) and coat with butter, flour, or non-stick cooking spray.

Lump your dough ball into the pot and cover all over with olive oil. This will make sure your bread is a lovely brown color.

Next, you'll want to make some cuts into the top of the bread. This is called 'scoring' and allows the bread to expand while baking. You can get into some pretty detailed technicalities about which way to score, how deep to score, etc....but in this case, just make whatever cuts you like. I opted for an X straight in the middle.

Ready to bake! Clamp your lid on top of the pot, throw it in the oven and let it bake untouched for about 30 minutes.

When you take it out, it will look a bit like this.

Pop that baby back in without the lid for another 10-15 minutes and.................

Does that look like a dream or what?!

The dreamiest, crunchiest loaf of bread you could imagine.

Ready to smother in goodies and eat with a very big smile on your face because you, my friend, are a bread baker!