Dutch oven bread
Ingredients
1kg plain flour, extra for kneading
1 tsp yeast
1 tbsp sea salt flakes
2 tbsp chopped rosemary
2¾ cup cool water
Method
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Sift flour into a large bowl. Add yeast, salt and rosemary. Make a well in the centre and pour in water. Mix with a wooden spoon until mixture begins to clump together.
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Use your hand to mix in any flour in bottom of the bowl. Knead mixture roughly into a ball. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and leave for 12 hours (ideally overnight) to prove until tripled in volume.
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Use a floured hand to scrape dough from bowl. Turn out onto a floured surface and knead into a ball. Cut in half. Scatter plain flour into 2 clean tea towels. Put each piece of dough onto a tea towel, wrap up and rest in a warm place for 1-2 hours or until doubled in size.
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Preheat oven to 220°C. Place a 20cm (2.4L) or 22cm (3.3L) cast-iron pot with lid into oven and preheat for 15 minutes. Lift out of oven with thick oven mits. Dust some flour into bottom of the pot.
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Unwrap one of the doughs and drop into pot, smooth side down with creases from underside facing up. Cover with lid and bake for 35-40 minutes until lightly golden. Uncover and bake for an extra 10 minutes or until golden
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Use oven mits to tip out bread and repeat with remaining dough (see tip). Serve.
Tip: If you have two pots, both doughs can be baked together at the same time.
