Artisan Bread

Since I live far, far away from my favorite bakery (Kneader's) I have been craving crusty on the outside, chewy on the inside bread. I have FINALLY found the most amazing recipe ever. This is true artisan bread. The key to making this is using a dutch oven with a lid. It requires some heavy duty insulation at high heat. You can also buy the Paula Dean ceramic oval pan at Walmart (but I think that is around 45 dollars). The best way to make this bread is start it the night before. Then, the next day, it will be super easy. This bread literally melts in your mouth. This loaf didn't even last more than a few hours at our house. Thanks to my mother in law (Linda Hull) for the recipe.She's an amazing cook. -Christine

Artisan Bread
4 1/3 cups white flour
1 Tbl wheat flour
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp instant yeast
2 1/4 cups of lukewarm water

Sift first 3 ingrediants then add water and yeast. Stir well in a large bowl. Make sure the bowl pulls away from the bowl or add a little but more flour until it does. You don't want your mixture to be too wet, or it won't work.
Cover the bowl with plastic and then with a towel. Leave for 12-18 hours.

Next Day:
Since your dough will have spread out by now, dust your counter with no more than 1/4 cup of flour and gather the dough into a blob. Dust with a little flour. Cover with towel and let rise for 2 hours. Meanwhile, turn on oven to 450 and put your dutch oven in the hot oven for an hour to preheat the pan.

Turn oven down to 400 F. Dump bread into pot, cover with lid and bake for 30 minutes. Remove the lid and bake for an additional 15-25 minutes, depending on how hard you like your crust. If you prefer, you can let the bread sit for a few hours to toughen up the crust.