If you buy bread at the store, you know how expensive it is getting to be.  Cheap bread is loaded with preservatives and not worth eating.  Good bread is super spendy, at least for us.  Making your own bread can save you hundreds of dollars a year, if you go through a loaf a week at over $3 a loaf.

And pizza?  A takeout pizza can be $10 to $20 depending on the place, while pizza ingredients can be under $3 if you work it out right.

Over the past week, I started experimenting with a bread dough recipe my friend Michele sent me, via an old article in The Mother Earth News.  It’s for a bread dough you can mix up and keep in the refrigerator for up to two weeks, just using what you need on relatively short notice and storing the rest without it rising too much.  Because the ingredients are simple (flour, salt, water, yeast) this bread is ridiculously inexpensive and incredibly good.  For the cost of one loaf of store bread, you can make a double batch of dough that can make up to six loaves.

The basic science or method behind regular homemade bread is pretty simple:  yeast bread made the traditional way is mixed, then kneaded, then left to rise til double, punched down, shaped into loaves, risen again and then baked.

This can make bread baking into a project that ties you to the house for half a day at least, and you either make too much bread from one recipe or go to all that time and effort for only one loaf of bread. I don’t know about you, but if I’m doing a big project, I tend to want to make a lot so I only have to do it once.  Unfortunately, with bread, a lot equals a lot of waste because we don’t use the bread up before it goes bad.

Anyway, I got the recipe from Michele and we’ve used it for about a week and I am really happy with it.  Next batch I make, I will use a little less flour so the bread isn’t quite so dense, but otherwise it’s wonderful.

I bake this bread on a pizza stone in a very hot oven.  First off, if you don’t already have a pizza stone and a pizza peel, do NOT panic and don’t feel that you have to run out and buy one.  I will say, though, that if you are going to make a commitment to frugal living and all that entails, a pizza stone is a great investment if your family likes pizza.   If you don’t have one yet or don’t want to buy one, just make sure to have a pan for the bread to bake in or a cookie sheet to put the round loaf on.  My friend Michele uses a glazed stoneware pie pan.

Another nice thing? This is a no-knead recipe.  I enjoy kneading bread on those half-day bread baking marathons or when I have to get my stress out.  But this recipe doesn’t call for it.  So that’s a plus if you don’t like to knead or don’t want to or don’t have time.

You mix up the ingredients in a large (and I mean LARGE) bowl, cover with a greased piece of plastic and let it rise for about two hours or until it is doubled and then (this is important) let it keep rising until it collapses in on itself without you touching it or helping it do so.

At that point, you can cover it loosely and put it in the fridge until you use it to make bread or pizza crust.  Let it refrigerate at least three hours before using it the first time.

When you need some dough, take out the bowl, cut off a piece of dough (about a pound) and refrigerate the rest.  Shape it into a ball on the counter (you might use a little flour to keep it from sticking.  If you’re using a pizza stone/pizza peel, sprinkle a little cornmeal on the peel to allow the risen loaf to slide off the peel onto the stone when it’s done.  Put the shaped loaf onto the peel and slash the top lightly with a knife to make three diagonal lines parallel to one another.

Cover with a piece of waxed paper or oiled plastic wrap and let it rise on the peel for about 20-30 minutes.  Meanwhile, prehead the oven with the pizza stone in it at 450 degrees.  If you want a thick chewy crust on your bread, place a pyrex container of hot water in the back of the oven to add steam while it bakes.

When the dough is done rising, slide it off the pizza peel onto the pizza stone and bake for 25-30 minutes.  Cool before cutting.  This is a dense bread and will have a taste and texture similar to sourdough after the dough has been in the fridge for a while.

INGREDIENTS:

3 cups hot water (about 100 degrees, or slightly above body temperature)
1 1/2 TB dry yeast (get this in bulk if you’re serious about bread)
1 1/2 TB salt (use kosher salt if you have it)
6 cups flour (do not sift before measuring) [the original recipe calls for 6 1/2 cup but I find that’s too much)

Mix all together in the bowl before covering to raise.  That’s it.  If you want to double the batch, just remember 6-3-3-12: 6 cups water, 3TB yeast, 3TB salt, 12 cups flour.

This is for white bread – I will experiment with wheat next time.

I make this dough into pizza crust and it is wonderful.  Take out about a loaf’s worth of dough, pat it into a circle, roll it out really thin (1/4″ to 1/8″ thin) and put on cornmeal-dusted pizza peel. MAKE SURE YOUR OVEN IS ALREADY PREHEATED WITH THE PIZZA STONE.

Put sauce and toppings on unbaked dough, working fast.  Slide pizza into oven onto pizza peel and bake about 8-10 minutes or til the cheese is melted.  Crust is chewy and substantial and if you make a big batch of dough, you always have some on hand.

When you use the last of your dough, it’s simple to go ahead and mix up a new batch right away so you always have it on hand.  Just scrape down the bowl and use that in the ingredients for the next batch – it’s like sourdough starter.

If you try this recipe, please let me know and post about it on your own blog, with pictures if possible.  If you don’t have a blog, send me a picture of your dough and I’ll post it here.

Here is a link to the (long but interesting) article about the dough from Mother Earth News:

Five Minutes a Day for Fresh Artisan Bread.