Artisan Breads!

Dean, a Wood Stone Residential customer, was kind enough to send along this amazing recipe he adapted to use in his Wood Stone Oven. We thought it was worth sharing with the rest of you! 🙂 Thanks, Dean, and feel free to send along future recipes for us to try!

Here’s what Dean had to say:

“I’ll be happy to share both the photo and the recipe with you, but you should know that the recipe isn’t exactly mine. It came out of the book “Artisan Breads in 5 Minutes a Day” by Jeff Hertzberg. I just adapted it to the Wood Stone oven. It’s really simple:

Vermont Cheddar Bread

• 3 cups lukewarm water
• 1 ½ tablespoons granulated yeast
• 1 ½ tablespoons Kosher salt
• 1 ½ tablespoons sugar
• 6 ½ cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup grated cheddar cheese

1. Mix yeast, salt, and sugar with the water in a 5 quart bowl.
2. Mix in the dry ingredients and the cheese without kneading, using a spoon, a 14-cup capacity food processor (with dough attachment, or a heavy duty stand mixer (with dough hook).
3. Cover (not airtight) and allow to rest at room temperature until the dough doubles and collapses, approximately 2 hours.’
4. Refrigerate in a lidded (not airtight) container and use over the next several days (the recipe makes 4- 1 lb loaves)
5. On baking day, cut off a 1-pound piece of the dough. Dust the piece with flour and quickly shape into a ball by stretching the surface of the dough around to the bottom on all four sides, rotating the ball a quarter-turn as you go. Allow to rest and rise on a semolina-covered pizza peel for 1 hour.
6. Just before cooking, dust with flour, then using a serrated knife cut a ¼”-deep cross in the top of the dough.

Here’s where I adapted the recipe to the oven. I heat my oven to about 480 degrees. Once it reaches that temperature, I use my infra-red thermometer to find a spot near the landing zone that is around 450 degrees. I then shut the oven off, and put the dough in my 450-degree spot. Next I slide a paella pan full of water into the oven, then put the doors on. After 30 minutes the bread should be done.

I tried this recipe for the first time today, and it was delicious.

Enjoy!

Dean”