‘No Name Bread’ – – A dense, round loaf made with flour & cornmeal. Perfect with chili, soup or stew!

No Name Bread is delicious, but what makes it really special is how little ‘hands on’ time is needed. You mix flour, salt, water and instant yeast, then let the dough sit overnight. (Or a total of 12 – 18 hours.) About an hour before you plan to eat, add some cornmeal & some seasonings and knead dough for about 5 minutes.  Cover dough and allow to rest for a half hour.  Bake for a half hour and ‘et voila’ – a dense moist bread which holds up to being dunked in soup, chili or stew.  ; o )

I’ll let you in a secret.  This loaf of bread is NOT the bread I intended to make.  I won’t go into a lot of detail about The Problem.  I’ll just mention that ‘all flours are not made equal’, meaning Canadian flour is slightly different than flour used in the States. Due to that difference, the dough ended up being sticky and soft. But the yeast worked it’s magic and that’s the most important thing!!

I thought of adding a bit more flour to the dough but was out of flour. (Thank you flour moths…)  But I did have cornmeal – and the rest of the story will go down in history as How ‘No Name Bread’ Came to Be!

INGREDIENTS       ++  Remember to start the dough the afternoon or night before!!

• 3 cups unbleached all purpose flour
• 1 3/4 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. instant OR rapid rise yeast    ++  Bread machine yeast IS rapid rise yeast
• 1 1/2 cups lukewarm water    ++ Run your hands under the water to check.  If the water feels  slightly warmer than your hand – it’s perfect!
• 1 cup cornmeal.
• 1/2 tsp. Italian seasoning
• 1/3 tsp. garlic salt with herbs
•  2 Tbs. pine (pignolia) nuts    ++  optional
• parchment paper
• RIGHT BEFORE BAKING….
• olive oil
• 1/4 tsp. Italian seasonings

METHOD

Oven at 450 (F)       Bake on a parchment paper-lined cookies sheet for 25 mins.

In a large bowl, whisk together 3 cups flour, 1 3/4 tsp. salt and 1/2 tsp. instant (rapid rise) yeast.  Mix in 1 1/2 cups lukewarm water.  Cover bowl with plastic wrap and allow to sit for 12 – 18 hours.  (You can peek it at… I know I did!)

About an hour before you plan to serve the bread, turn out dough… which will be VERY sticky… onto a heavily floured work surface.  Roll dough around a bit so it picks up some of the flour.  Add 1 cup cornmeal.  Work the dough with your hands until cornmeal is thoroughly mixed in.  Add 1/2 tsp. Italian seasonings, 1/3 tsp. garlic salt with herbs and 2 Tbs. pine nuts and work into dough.

Knead dough for about 5 minutes. Scrape dough onto the middle of a parchment paper-lined cookie sheet.  Form into a 7 1/2″ circle.  Cover dough with the same large bowl, turned upside down, and allow to rest for 30 minutes.

See, it’s bubbling again!

Drizzle dough with olive oil (you can be generous with the olive oil) and sprinkle with 1/4 tsp. Italian seasonings.

Bake in a preheated 450 (F) oven for 25 minutes.  ++  Loaf will look more ‘golden’ than brown.  I recommend letting the loaf of ‘No Name Bread’ sit for 5 – 10 minutes…. if you can wait that long!!

Follow this link for my recipe ‘Thick ‘n Creamy Charred Red Bell Pepper and Potato Chowder’

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