Over the past few weeks I’ve been really into the bread making world. I’ve made everything from boules to epi baguettes. Here’s a simple recipe anyone can follow.

Before we start with the recipe, let’s have some of the basic tools you should get in order to make the best possible home-made bread. Your wallet won’t hate you, I promise.

• A pizza stone
• A pizza peel (optional, but highly recommended)
• Oven thermometer

Even when I don’t use the pizza stone, I keep it in the oven (lower rack when not in use) so that it will help maintain temperature inside the oven. The thermometer will help you check oven temperature.

Ingredients

• 5 ½ cups of all purpose flour
• 1 cup rye flour
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 1 tablespoon yeast
• 3 cups luke warm water

Add the water to a 6qt container, the dough is going to expand a lot. Add the yeast and let sit for a few minutes.

In a separate container, mix the salt, rye and flour together. Then add this mixture to the water and mix together well, add more water if needed.

Once you have it all mixed, cover losely and let sit at room temperature for 2 hours. The dough will expand roughly twice it size over the 2 hours and will become bubbly and full of air. After two hours put it in the fridge.

Baking the bread

Grab a piece of dough from the container, cover in some flour and let rest for a few minutes. Since the dough is nice and cool it’s a bit easier to handle. Start pre-heating your oven with the pizza stone in there to 450F (roughly 230C)

Shape the dough into either a boule, or a baguette and let rest for 45 minutes.

Once the oven is up to temperature (check your thermometer!) place the bread onto the pizza stone and bake for 35 minutes. You can add steam in a variety of ways, I usually have stainless steel skillet in there while it’s pre-heating and add some water when I put the bread in.

After 35 minutes remove the bread and place on a cooling rack.

And now the most important part: enjoy!