This homemade, easy-ish, farm bread takes all day to make, but it’s worth it. It’s delicious, hearty, and substantial, with a crackly, chewy crust. The crumb is soft, but substantial with a rustic white, very lightly wheaty, taste.
Easy, All-Day Farm Bread
1
3-lb., round loafall day
to makeIngredients
580g water, room temperature or lukewarm (2½ cups + 2 Tbs)
1 pkg. active dry yeast (2¼ tsp)
72g whole wheat flour (½ cup)
285g cake flour (2 cups + 1 Tbs)
580g bread flour (4 cups + 2 Tbs)
23g fine sea salt (4 tsp)
Butter
Corn meal
Ice
Directions
- Pour the water into the bowl of a stand mixer. Pour in the yeast and give it a stir with a flexible spatula, to make sure there are no clumps lingering at the bottom of the bowl. Pour in the wheat, cake, and bread flours. Sprinkle the salt over the top. Using the dough hook, mix at lowest speed until the mixture forms into a dough, about 1 minute. Increase speed to 2 (low speed) and knead for 4 minutes.
- Butter a large mixing bowl. Place the dough into the bowl, then immediately pick it back up, flip it over, and place it back into the bowl. (This gets the dough fully coated in butter.) Cover the bowl with a damp tea towel and let it rest for 1 hour.
- Perform the first stretch-and-fold: grab the dough by one of its sides, peel it away from the bowl, and lift it above the bowl. We’re going to call the side you’re holding onto the “north end.” Continuing to hold it by its north end, let gravity stretch the south end toward the bowl. Shake and jiggle it a bit to encourage the dough to stretch. Rotate the dough 180° so that you’re holding onto the south end, and let it continue to stretch. Fold it in half, north to south, and lay it back into bowl. Replace the damp tea towel, and let the dough rest for 1 hour.
- Repeat Step 3 twice, for a total of 3 stretch-and-folds. Each time you do this, stretch it in a 90-degree-different direction than you did last time.
- Transfer the dough to a Silpat and form into into a round. Let it relax for 45 minutes.
- Rip off a sheet of parchment that will fit into a casserole pot (Dutch oven) with a few inches of overhang. Push the parchment into the pot and form it to the interior. (Due to the width of a common roll of parchment, you’ll get overhang on the ripped sides (along the length of the parchment), but not on the other sides (along the width). That’s OK.) Take the parchment back out, and butter it. Then, sprinkle it with corn meal. Place it back into the pot without disturbing too much of the corn meal. Reshape the dough into a tight round and place it seam-side-down into the pot. Butter a piece of plastic wrap, and lay it loosely over the pot. Place the pot in the warmest spot of your house, and let the bread rise until it passes the “touch” test, about 3½ hours.
- When you’re ½-hour away from go-time, place a second, same-size, covered casserole pot into the oven, and preheat the oven to 450°F.
- At go-time, remove the hot pot from the oven and remove its lid. Carefully grab the parchment overhang and use it to lift the bread out of the other pot and transfer the whole thing to the hot pot. Score the bread. Slip ¾-cup of ice into three different locations between the parchment and the sides of the hot pot. (The parchment should prevent any ice from touching the bread.) Place the hot lid back onto the hot pot, and slide the whole thing into the oven. After 8 minutes, remove the lid.
- After 35 minutes, remove the pot from the oven, use the parchment overhang to lift the bread out of the pot, lift the bread off the parchment, and place the loaf back into the oven, right on the oven rack. Check at 5-minute intervals, until the bread is darkly browned and the interior temperature is 200°F. (Slightly above is OK. Stick the thermometer though where you scored the bread.)
- Move the bread to a cooling rack and let it cool completely before slicing.
There are a million ways to make bread, and many different ways to do it in a casserole. Most people who use a casserole do it with just one pot. I use two only because I happen to have two of the same-sized pots. If you look this up on the internet, you’ll find loads of options.
Ingredients:
Whole wheat flour has a has a shorter shelf life than white flour. To extend its shelf life, I keep it in the freezer. I don’t bother bringing it to room temperature for this recipe.
Instead of the cake and bread flours, you could use all-purpose flour. However, you won’t get quite the same results.
Pro Move:
Cool the finished bread! Don’t give in to the temptation to cut into the bread while it’s still warm. So long as it feels warm to the touch, it’s continuing to bake on the inside.
Storage:
Best within the first 24 hours. Keep it uncovered, on the counter top. Once you’ve cut into it, continue to keep it uncovered, but keep the cut side down on a flat surface (like a cutting board). At 48 hours, it’s still good, but you’ll notice that it’s slightly dryer. At the end of 48 hours, the bread should be moved to a resealable plastic bag. The crust will soften, but the bread will dry out more slowly. After about two to three days in the bag, you’ll want to start making toast from it – and it’ll be fantastic as toast. It’ll stay in this stage for several days.
The Backstory
“Easy” is a relative term. I call this loaf “easy-ish” because compared to all the other loaves that I commonly make, this one required much, much less active work. The stand mixer does all the mixing and kneading. But I think it nonetheless has too many steps and takes too long to be called “easy.”
I call it “all-day” because it really does take the better part of a day to make it. Almost all of that time is completely unattended, but it does keep you tied to the house.
Easy-ish, All-Day Farm Bread
Credit for images on this page: Make It Like a Man! This content was not solicited by anyone, nor was it written in exchange for anything. References: Farm Bread, in Zingerman’s Bakehouse, by Amy Emberling and Frank Carollo (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2017), 110–12. Thank you, Kesor. Thank you, ⌘+C. Make It Like a Man! is ranked by Feedspot as #5 in the Top 30 Men’s Cooking Blogs.
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Lovely bread and it does seem relatively easy, even if it is sporadically a little time consuming.
Thank you, Anne!
You had my attention at crackly, chewy crust… this is the best invitation a bread lover could get! The steps you outlined make following this recipe very easy, and the end result is definitely worth hanging around the house on a lazy weekend. Slicing this up… the options are endless. Do I slather it with butter and jam… or do I make a gourmet deli style sandwich. Choices, choices, and delicious choices!
I know! It would be good for all of those things! And thanks!
I have never made bread. It looks so good.
I am into making all types of bread (except sourdough — just never got into it) and I love trying new methods. I will definitely try this, Jeff. Thanks!
I hope you like it, David. It takes a long time – but taking a long time is good for bread flavor. The big plus though is that it doesn’t really involve a whole lot of work, even if it does require attention.
Nothing better than fresh bread. I don’t know if I have the willpower to hold off cracking into it fresh from the oven tho 😉
I know the feeling!
Que pintaza tiene ese pan, pero me conformo con verlo my envidiarlo, soy un desastre haciendo panes. Un abrazo
Oh, I know how you feel! It takes a lot of patience and practice!
Il est magnifique ce pain
Bravo
Thank you!
The bread looks absolutely delicious. I have not baked bread in years- I was never that good at bread making. But I have tasted fresh bread from the oven and nothing beats it…
That loaf looks absolutely fantastic, the kind of bread that makes you want to clear your schedule just so you can hang around the house smelling it bake. Nice one Jeff
I love homemade bread and this sounds and looks delicious.
I’d like a slice of this fantastic homemade bread!
Looks like a perfect accompaniment for all the soup I’m having at the moment to try and keep warm Jeff. Yum!
Look at that bread, it looks fantastic. Leaving it to cool is pure torture, after having smelled the wonderful aroma of it baking, I honestly don’t know how you do it.
Complimenti, un pane splendido!!!
The bread has a fantastic crust and crumb. Well done, Jeff.
Thanks!
I love a loaf of bread with a good chewy crust, and this one looks perfect! Wait for it to cool? What is that nonsense all about!?
Hahaha!
Artesano Bread from Texas is an interesting bubby chewy bread.