Hard crust bread!

I love to bake bread. I’ve even come up with my own recipe that I’m pretty happy with. I was trying to replicate the “milk bread” we could get from the bakery in Germany. I was never able to do it, but came up with my own version that is similar in taste to Great Harvest bread.

When we first moved here, all my bread was coming out flat. I thought it was the yeast, so I bought new yeast. Still the same, flabby result. Tastes great, but slices would come out the shape of a biscotti. Bummer. I stopped baking bread for awhile. Finally, last month I started using unsalted butter and -poof- the fluff was back! Yea! The salted butter I buy here must be saltier than what I used in Winston-Salem???

So, my bread baking interest was back. And I wanted to make a nice, hard-crust bread. I had tried using a pan of water in a very hot (400 degrees) oven. Subpar results.

Then I ran across this article: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/08/dining/08mini.html
The gist is, you let the dough sit overnight (no kneading) and cook it at 450 in a preheated, covered pot.

I can’t believe my success!!! Take a look:

I’m so happy! My only caveat is the flavor is pretty plain. I may try tinkering with that next.