(this is a fantastic way to get familiar and comfortable with bread dough before trying sourdough-- you can practice building gluten, shaping, and baking using methods similar to sourdough but with the forgiveness of yeast)

ingredients

• 4 cups all-purpose flour

• 2 tsp active dry yeast

• 1 cup warm water (100-110F)

• 1-1/4 cup room temperature water (decrease to 1 cup if you'd like a drier dough that is easier to shape)

• 1 tbsp kosher salt

steps

1. In a small bowl, add the warm water and active dry yeast. Whisk until dispersed. Set aside for 5-10 minutes until frothy.

2. In a large mixing bowl, add the flour and salt. Stir until combined.

3. Once yeast mixture is frothy, add it to the large mixing bowl with the flour. Add the additional 1-1/4 cup of room temperature water. Stir until it all comes together into a loose wet dough without any dry flour clumps.

4. Cover with plastic wrap and let sit for 30 minutes.

5. Uncover and do a few sets of stretch and folds (either use a wet hand or you can use a spatula like what Nick did) to help build some additional gluten. You should see the dough come together into more of a ball form. Recover with plastic wrap and let rise for 2-4 hours or until doubled.

6. Once doubled, prepare a medium or large mixing bowl with parchment paper.

7. Lightly flour a clean surface with either rice flour or all-purpose flour (rice flour will help a lot more if your dough is very wet/sticky). Gently stretch the dough out into a rectangular shape. Fold in the sides into thirds like a letter. Then, tightly roll from bottom to top to create an oval shape. To form into a round, use a quarter turning motion and pull on the dough towards you while using surface tension to tuck the sides of the dough under. Keep doing this until a round is formed.

8. Use a bench scraper to scoop and lift the shaped dough into the bowl with parchment paper. Cover while preheating.

9. Preheat the oven to 450F with the dutch oven inside (no lid).

10. Once preheated, score the dough in the bowl with a sharp knife ~1/4" deep. Lift using the parchment paper to carefully drop it into the hot dutch oven. Optionally add a handful of ice cubes under the parchment paper to create more steam. Cover with the lid and bake for 30 minutes.

11. Remove lid and bake for another 15 minutes.

12. Let cool to room temperature before slicing. Enjoy!