Italian Bread

I started learning to bake bread about eight months ago as a cost savings when the hubby and I decided that I would be staying home with our little princess instead of returning to work. What started off as a way to save money has turned into an all out love for baking...something I never thought would happen with me.

I've always loved cooking. I grew up watching my grandmother cook, but baking was never something I enjoyed. With cooking I didn't have to measure, and I could throw pretty much anything in there that I wanted. But baking...baking is a science and requires precise measurements and specific ingredients.

My first attempt at making bread was not so successful. It was a loaf of Italian Bread to go with some spaghetti and meatballs while my in-laws were in town. I didn't have a bread machine, so I had to do all of the work myself. To this day, I'm still not sure what happened, but it didn't rise properly and was very dense and chewy and got very little color in the oven. You've got to love my family though, they ate every bite of it and praised me for my hard work.

Fast forward eight month and I now have a bread machine (Thanks Mom!), and after having tried many, many recipes, I finally found one that I love. Thanks to Biffy 62 on Food.com, I now have an Italian Bread recipe that my whole family loves!

You can add herbs and other seasonings to this if you would like, but I prefer the plain and simple recipe as it is. I've listed the recipe below with a few MINOR tweaks that I've done to our taste.

Italian Bread, from Biffy 62 on Food.com

Ingredients:

• 1 cup water, warmed
• 2 Tbs olive oi, plus more for prepping your baking sheet
• 2 tsp granulated sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp active dry yeast
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• 2 Tbs cornmeal

Directions:

1. Add the first six ingredients into your bread machine in the order specified by your machine's instructions.
2. Turn bread machine on and set to the dough setting.
3. Prepare a baking sheet by lightly oiling with a little olive oil and sprinkle on the cornmeal.
4. Once the dough cycle is complete, remove dough from the bread machine and form into a loaf shape and set on the prepared baking sheet and cover with a towel until doubled in size (approximately 45 - 60 minutes). Note: I find that turning your oven on to preheat at this stage helps with the rising process.
5. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.
6. Once dough has doubled in size, remove towel and place baking sheet in oven and bake for 20 - 25 minutes, until golden brown and bread sounds hollow when you knock on the bottom.

Note: After many experiments to form a nice crust on the bread, I have personally found that placing a pan of water in the bottom of the oven during the baking process works best.