Rosemary Peasant Bread

My friend Krista shared her recipe for Rosemary Peasant Bread with me and I couldn’t resist making it immediately.  Both loaves were gone the following day, and after making another two loaves today, only half of the second loaf remains (exactly two hours after removing them from the oven).  This is becoming a problem, albeit a delicious one.

Feel free to blame Krista if you find yourself in a similar predicament.  I do.

Rosemary Peasant Bread

• 2 1/2 tsp dry yeast
• 2 c. warm water
• 1 T. sugar
• 2 tsp salt
• 4 c. flour
• 2 tsp. dried rosemary, plus more for topping
• olive oil, corn meal, & coarse salt

Dissolve yeast and sugar in the warm water.  Add flour, salt, and rosemary & stir until blended.  Do not knead!! Cover and let rise for 1 hour or until doubled in size (no need to grease the bowl, just leave it be).

Dump half of dough each into a greased round 8 or 9″ cake pans that have been lightly sprinkled with corn meal. Cover loosely with greased plastic wrap. Then let it rise another hour.

Lightly sprinkle with more rosemary and coarse salt.

Bake @ 425 for 10 minutes, then reduce temp to 375 for 15 minutes more.

As Krista says, “Cool on wire racks if you can stand it. We eat it almost right away.”

Consider yourself forewarned.

Makes 16 wedges.
Per wedge:
116 calories
293 mg sodium
21 g carbs
1 g fiber
3.3 g protein

Veronica’s Notes: I used 1 packet of quick-rise (also called instant, highly active, etc) yeast and did 30 minutes on the first rise and another 30 on the second–saves some time.  I let the dough rise in a 200 degree oven and turned it off as soon as the (metal) bowl was in there. And I used foil to cover the bowl and the pans (sprayed with oil) just to prevent any plastic melt-age.  I had problems with my bread sticking to the pans when I used olive oil so I greased them generously with shortening the second time.  They still stuck a little, but not nearly as bad.  Krista never has a problem with this so hopefully it’s just me.  And if you’re wondering why my salt looks so weird, I didn’t have any coarse salt so I used some leftover pretzel salt which is white instead of clearish.  Shut up and leave me alone.