Recipe Box: Farmer's Bread and Croutons

Image by Amber Shehan

As the temperature has been plummeting, I've been finding myself wanting nothing more than something - anything - hot and fresh out of the oven.  Warm, dense food.  Bread, butter, and beer, stews and meats and spicy soups.

The other morning found me lost in my old binder of collected recipes, some of them tried and true, some of them just waiting for the right time to be made. I unfortunately forget to look in there for inspiration as it's easy to be distracted with all of the recipes and choices on the web.  But as I flipped through the pages, I found a wonderful bread recipe that yielded an awesome loaf that I will be making quite often!

I love this bread.  It's easy to make, and quicker than many other breads...only an hour and a half total rising time.   This loaf is simple, hearty, solid, dense, buttery, and it slices as thin as paper without a fight!  Soon it will be made into French Toast, Bruschetta, and many other uses will be found for it, I foresee...

Below, find the recipe for the Farmer's Loaf, and below it, a recipe for making Croutons with stale bread.  I can't offer attribution, as it's something scribbled down over ten years ago, sorry about that!

Farmer's Loaf
Makes one large loaf, or two small.

2 packages active dry yeast
2 cups of warm water
6 1/2 cups of flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup butter, chilled and diced

• Sprinkle yeast in the warm water and set to the side for ten minutes.
• Combine 4 cups of the flour with the salt in a large bowl.
• Cut in the butter until evenly mixed.
• Stir in the creamy yeast mixture.  Beat in the rest of the flour a little at a time.
• When it's all pulling together, turn out the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead it until it's smooth and elastic.
• Grease a large bowl with butter and set the dough in to rise. Cover with a damp cloth and let it sit for about an hour in a warm place.
• When the dough has doubled in size, pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees and lightly grease a baking sheet.
• Punch down the dough and turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and shape it into a round or oval loaf.  You can make one large, or two small loaves.
• Set the loaf on the baking sheet, cover with the damp towel, and let it rise until doubled.
• Before baking, cut a cross about a half inch deep across the loaf, and wipe the crust with water.
• Bake for 25 minutes, then turn the heat down to 350 and bake for another 15 minutes, or until loaf sounds hollow when tapped.  Let cool on wire rack before slicing.

You have to let it cool at least MOST of the way before you cut into it...trust me, it's hard to do.  But the cooking is continuing inside the crust and you have to allow it to finish.

It's worth the wait.  This bread is rich and buttery, with a solid crumb.  It can stand up to almost anything!

I cut some thick slices and left them out overnight and most of today.  Just before dinner, I used the stale bread to make some damn fine croutons for our dinner salad. 

Home-made Croutons

Dice some stale bread into bite-sized chunks and put them in a large bowl.  The Farmer's Loaf is ideal for croutons, in my opinion, as the rich, dense crumb lingers even when the bread is going stale, making for a softer crouton at the end.

In a small bowl, mix your choice of oil with spices.   I used olive oil, garlic powder, salt, pepper, and italian seasoning, and a bit of Parmesan cheese crumbles.  Season to taste.

Drizzle the olive oil mixture over the bread chunks and toss them around to coat.  Put the bread onto a pan and put under the broiler in the oven.  Check manically every 30 seconds or so to ensure they aren't burning, and let cool before eating.

Enjoy, dear ones, and eat well.