Homemade Herbed Saturday Bread

If you have a food processor, you can make bread with only 5 minutes of hands-on time. But I call this "Saturday bread' because the longer you let it rise before baking, the better it will be. You can put in whatever herbs or fillings you like!! I made mine with chopped red chilies and rosemary.

Homemade Herbed Saturday Bread

Ingredients:
-1 cup whole wheat flour
-2 1/2 cups white flour
-1 tsp. salt
-2 tsp. active dry yeast
-1 cup (+ a couple tbsp) water
-2-4 tbsp herbs of your choice (or fresh chopped chives, chilies, olives, sundried tomatoes, etc etc! You could really do almost anything here.)

Method:
In the food processor, combine the flours, salt and yeast. With the processor running, slowly pour in the water. It should become the consistency of a only slightly sticky dough ball which turns around and around against the wall of the processor bowl. It definitely should not leave any liquid on the wall. If it isn't sticking together, add 1-2 tbsp water and let it combine again. If by chance you add TOO much water and it gets a bit too sticky, just add 1-2 tbsp flour and mix again. Keep mixing until you get a good bread dough consistency.

(It's hard to describe here but if you YouTube search it, I am sure you'll find a video showing what the right consistency is.)

Take the dough out, knead it just a little bit with your hands, and place it in a bowl and cover it with Saran wrap. Let rise for AT LEAST 2 hours, or up to 5-6 hours. As long as you want, really. I went out and did errands. :)

Uncover the dough and knead a bit - this is the time when you will knead in your herbs/additions. Sprinkle a surface with flour and shape the dough into whatever you want - 1 large boule, a baguette, smaller boules, individual-sized rolls, etc. Put onto a floured surface and cover with a tea towel and let rise again, for at least an hour but up to 3-4 hours.

When you're ready, preheat the oven to 400F, preferably with a pizza stone in there. If you don't have a pizza stone, that's ok. Once the oven is preheated, transfer the dough to a pizza stone or onto a metal baking tray dusted with flour. Using a sharp knife, slice 1-2 lines into the top (only a bit less than 1 cm deep), then pop into the oven. Lower the heat to 375F.

Bake 25-45 minutes, or until the crust is golden and the internal temperature of the bread is 210F. (You can use a meat thermometer for this.)

Enjoy warm!