Crusty French Bread

Fresh baked bread is the absolute best!  This is a super easy way to enjoy delicious crusty bread right out of the oven.  Well, wait a few minutes, you don't want to burn your tongue.

INGREDIENTS

2 1/4 tsp. active dry yeast
1 tsp sugar
1 1/4 cups warm water (about 100 degrees F should do)
1 1/2 tsp kosher salt
2 1/2 cups All-Purpose Flour, plus extra for dusting

• Sprinkle a bit of flour across the top of the dough, and begin shaping it into a round loaf.  Pull each corner of the dough in towards the center a few times, then flip the dough over and tap it into a nice round loaf.
• Flour a proofing basket or a small mixing bowl and place your loaf into it seam-side down. Cover with a tea towel and let rise another 30 minutes or so.
• While bread proofs, place an empty dutch oven (with the lid on) in your oven and heat to 450 degrees.
• When the oven is hot, remove the dutch oven and tip your bread dough gently out of the proofing basket back onto your floured surface, then place it seam side up into the hot dutch oven.
• Using a lame or a knife, slice the bread a teeny tiny bit crosswise across the top.
• Place the dutch oven lid back on the pot, and slide the whole thing back into your hot oven.
• Bake bread for 30 minutes.
• Remove the lid from your dutch oven. The bread should be crusty and lightly browned. Continue baking, uncovered, for 5-10 minutes more until the bread has deepened in color and you have a beautiful brown crust.
• Use a long spatula to lift the bread out of the dutch oven and onto a cooling rack. Let cool for at least 20 minutes before cutting into it.

DIRECTIONS

• Combine yeast, sugar, and warm water in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook (or mix the dough by hand if you like – just use a large mixing bowl instead).
• Let the yeast proof for about 5 minutes, until the mixture looks nice and foamy.
• Add salt to bowl.
• Add flour to bowl a bit at a time and mix on low speed until all flour is incorporated and dough has just started to pull away from the sides of the bowl.
• When it’s done, lightly flour all sides of your dough and turn it over inside the mixing bowl to coat with flour on all sides. Cover with a tea towel and let rise on the counter for about 1 hour, until dough has doubled in size.
• Tip the dough out of the bowl and onto a lightly floured surface very slowly, to make sure you don’t punch it.