It's hard to describe the joy this humble-looking bread gives us.
The recipe is simplicity itself, containing nothing but 75% bread flour, 25% whole wheat flour, gluten, water and yeast. No salt or sugar.
The flavor complexities come from the "pre-ferment" phase. All the ingredients, (except I add
one cup only of the bread flour at this stage), goes into my Zojirushi bread machine. The yeast gets to work for over an hour converting a wet slurry into a foaming "sponge". Add the remaining bread flour, use European cycle. Finish off for 7 minutes in a regular oven sitting on a pizza stone at 440F (225C).
Of course the process creates heavenly aromas as a bonus.
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