This is real, honest bread — no shortcuts, no bread machine, just flour, water, yeast, and time doing most of the work. It takes the better part of an afternoon, most of it hands-off, and the result is a crackling crust over a soft, elastic interior that’s genuinely hard to buy anywhere.
What You’ll Need
- 1/2 cup plus 2 cups warm water (about 100–110°F)
- Approximately 7 cups flour (bread flour is best, all-purpose works in a pinch)
- 1 tablespoon salt
- 2 packages active dry yeast
How to Put It Together
1. Wake up the yeast
Empty the yeast into the 1/2 cup of warm water and stir until it dissolves. Get the temperature right here — warm enough to activate the yeast, but too hot and you’ll kill it outright. Let it sit for a few minutes. You’re looking for bubbles on the surface; that’s your sign the yeast is alive and working.
2. Build the base
Add the remaining 2 cups of water, the salt, and 2 cups of flour to the yeast mixture. Stir until it comes together into a fairly smooth batter.
3. Mix in the remaining flour
Add 4 more cups of flour and keep stirring until the dough gets too stiff to work with a spoon. At that point, turn it out onto a clean, floured surface.
4. Knead it properly
This takes a few minutes of real effort — you’re working toward a dough that’s smooth, elastic, and almost satiny to the touch, with no lumps left. You’ll likely need to work in more flour as you go, somewhere around 1 to 1.5 cups, sometimes a bit more depending on how humid your flour already is. You’ve added enough once the dough is just barely tacky, or not sticky at all. Go too far with the flour and the loaf ends up dense and tough instead of light.
Shape the dough into a ball, set it in a clean, lightly oiled bowl, and turn it over once so it’s coated on all sides. Cover with a damp towel.
5. The rising process
- First rise: Let it sit somewhere warm until it’s doubled in size — usually 1 hour 15 minutes to 1 hour 30 minutes. Once it’s there, punch it down, return it to the bowl, and cover it again.
- Second rise: Let it double again, about an hour this time. Punch it down once more and divide it into two equal pieces.
6. Shape the loaves
Form each piece into a long, thin loaf. This makes two fairly large loaves, though you can split the dough further for smaller baguette-style rolls if sandwiches are the goal. The easiest technique is to hold a piece of dough in both hands and stretch it by pulling and slapping it against the work surface — the dough has real elasticity at this point, so don’t be too gentle with it. Place the shaped loaves upside down on a baking sheet or stone.
Baker’s Note: Greasing the sheet or using cornmeal is common advice, but in practice neither is necessary, and cornmeal tends to just burn.
7. Final rise and bake
Cover the loaves with a damp towel and let them rise for about 20 minutes, until they’re nearly doubled again. While that’s happening, preheat the oven to 375°F.
Slide the loaves into the oven and bake for about 40 minutes. For the first 20 minutes, misting the loaves with water every few minutes (a plant mister works fine) noticeably improves the crust.
8. Check for doneness
Pull the loaves out, flip them over, and tap the bottoms gently. A hollow sound means they’re done; if it sounds dense or dull, give them a few more minutes.
How to Serve and Store
This bread is best eaten the same day — it goes stale faster than store-bought bread. However, once it’s past its prime, it makes excellent garlic bread!