Saffron Sugar Buns (Trini Hot Cross Buns)

It's been many years now since I first discovered Trini sugar buns.  I don't often venture into West Indian / Caribbean cooking, but when I do I'm usually pleased with the results.  There's something incredibly appealing about that kind of fusion cuisine.

I came across Trini sugar buns one year when I was searching for a new take on hot cross buns.  The idea of adding in saffron to a lightly-sweetened, milky cinnamon bun was just what I was searching for.  In the years since it's become a tradition of sorts, though I never actually add the icing.  They're just as good for a non-holiday brunch as they are for Easter, too.

Saffron Sugar Buns (Trini Hot Cross Buns)

 
Total Time:  30 mins prep, 2-2.5 hours rising, 25 minutes baking.


Credits:  The idea of adding saffron and turmeric to sweet rolls came from The Trini Gourmet.  The base roll recipe is a sweetened version of a dinner roll recipe that's been in my family for generations (affectionately known as The Rolls).

Makes:  24 small buns or approximately 18 large ones.




Ingredients:

• 0.5 cup raisins (optional, can sub currants/sultanas if preferred) + roughly 1 cup of boiling water
• 1 cup + 1 tablespoon milk (whole is best, but ok to sub as per your preferences)
• 0.25 tsp saffron threads
• 6 tablespoons sugar, divided
• 1/3 cup warm water
• 1 package (2.25 teaspoons) yeast
• 5 cups bread flour
• 0.5 teaspoon turmeric powder
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon powder
• 1.25 teaspoons salt
• 2.5 tablespoons vegetable shortening
• 2 eggs

Glaze:

• 1/4 cup milk
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 0.5 tsp cinnamon

Icing (optional):

• 1 cup 10x (confectioner's/icing) sugar
• 4 tablespoons milk
• 1/4 tsp lime juice
• pinch of salt

Directions:

1. Place the raisins in a heat-safe cup and cover with enough boiling water to leave 2 inches of water on top.  Set aside for 30 minutes to plump.
2. Meanwhile, heat the milk using stovetop or microwave and stir in 3 tablespoons of the sugar until completely dissolved.  Once milk is hot enough to produce steam, remove from heat and add saffron.  Set aside to cool while the saffron infuses the milk.
3. Dissolve the remaining 2 tablespoons of sugar into the lukewarm milk.  Add yeast and set aside to proof (5-10 minutes or until foamy).
4. Whisk together flour, salt, cinnamon, and turmeric.
5. Add shortening to the flour mix.  Blend until the flour takes on a grainy texture.
6. Add yeast mixture to the flour, mix.
7. Whisk eggs into the milk and mix until well-combined.  Knead 2-3 minutes.
8. Drain the raisins, pressing out any extra moisture.
9. Add raisins to the dough and knead 1-2 minutes or until combined.
10. Cover with a warm, damp towel and side aside to rise until doubled (about 90 minutes).
11. Form rolls (24 small or 18 large) by stretching dough over itself and pinching together at the bottom [see pictures below].  Space approximately two finger-widths apart in a well-greased pan.
12. Brush with milk glaze, cover with warm, damp towel, and aside aside to rise until doubled again (about 30-45 minutes).  NOTE:  if preferred, rolls could be covered with plastic wrap at this point and allowed to rise in the fridge overnight.  
13. Brush again with milk glaze just before baking. 
14. Bake at 325F for 25 minutes (may take slightly longer for large buns).  Halfway through, rotate the pans 180 degrees and brush again with milk glaze.
15. Allow buns to cool completely on a wire rack.
16. Optional:  whisk together the icing ingredients while buns are baking and place them in the fridge to cool.  Top with icing once buns are completely cooled.

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The trick to this particular recipe is to start the raisins and the saffron milk before doing anything else.  

The reason for plumping the raisins in hot water is to keep them from sucking all the moisture out of the buns as they bake.  If you're feeling adventurous you could also use milk or whiskey/rum.  I find hot water does the trick just fine.  Just make sure whatever cup you use can handle boiling water.  Cover them completely, plus a few inches extra on top to give them room to grow.

See how much they plump up? 

Next up is the saffron milk.  One important thing to remember if cooking/baking with saffron is that you won't get much flavor unless you infuse it into a warm liquid first.  I did this on the stovetop.  Microwaving is also an option.  You don't need to get the milk boiling or anything -- just warm it enough to steam a little and dissolve the sugar.  Once the milk is warm sprinkle the saffron on top, using your fingers to crush the threads a little as you go.  I took this picture as soon as I could grab my camera, and you can already see the color/flavor leeching into the milk just a few seconds after I put the saffron in.

Take it off the heat and let it cool.  You don't want the milk to be too hot when you add it to the dough or else it'll kill your yeast.  Lukewarm is okay. 

Note:  if you want to cut down on dishes, you could put the raisins into the hot milk along with the saffron.  I tend not to because then I find the buns get a little too raisin-flavored and the saffron flavor gets buried.  Up to you.

While the milk and raisins are busy working their mojo dissolve the remaining sugar and yeast into the lukewarm water.  

This is calling "proofing" because what you're doing is making sure (proving) that the yeast is alive.  That was more of an issue in the old days but is still a good idea if you tend to keep yeast for months or years.  It's not a strictly necessary step, though.  The proof that the yeast is active/alive is that it starts to digest the sugar, which we can indirectly observe by the gas that it lets off.  That's where the foam comes from:

Neat, huh?  And only a little bit gross.  Try not to think about it.  

While the yeast is chowing down on the sugar water and belching up proof (yum), whisk together your flour, salt, cinnamon, and turmeric:

The spices will kind of disappear into the flour.  Not to worry, the saffron is going to give the buns a nice yellow color.  

Next up is the shortening.  If you're like me, shortening kind of freaks you out.  If you want to give butter or even lard a try, I won't stop you though I can't guarantee that it'll come out the same.  You might have to play around with measurements a little.

Blending in the shortening will change the texture of the flour so that it's more grainy:

Okay, so now you've got all the major components.  First the proven yeast goes in:

Mix that up, whisk the eggs into the cooled milk (make sure it's only lukewarm, not hot):

See how yellow the milk got?  That's all the saffron-y goodness.  Once the eggs are whisked in, add that to the flour:

Blend it all into a dough.  If you're using a mixer, like I was, you may want to stop partway through to change from a paddle to a dough hook.  

Once it all comes together like the above, you can knead it for about 2-3 minutes.  That should give you a soft, springy dough:

At this point drain the raisins, pressing any extra moisture out, and add them in.  Another minute or two of kneading should be enough to mix them in.  

Your dough is done!  Wet down a clean cloth with hot water and drape it over the top of your mixing bowl.  The dough will rise at different rates depending on how warm your kitchen is -- usually about 90 minutes is adequate to get it to roughly double in size.

When the dough has risen it's time to shape it into buns.  I usually opt for smaller ones for the simple reason that I really like these buns and usually go for a second one whether I need it or not.  

There's a trick to getting round(ish) buns and rolls that goes like so:  stretch the dough through your fingers and tuck it in on itself until it's round and smooth.  Here's the first step, where I'm using the thumb of my left hand to push the dough through a ring made with the fingers of my right hand:

Please forgive my giant ham hands and instead focus on how this is stretching the top of the bun so that it's smooth.  Doing that will give you a kind of pocket at the bottom, which you can then pinch together:

Again, ham hands.  Sorry.  But anyway, if you put the bun seam-side down into your pan, nobody will ever know that the bottom is kind of puckery:

See?  And now your bun isn't all lumpy.

Lather, rinse, repeat until all the dough is used up.  Space them about two finger-widths apart and don't panic if you don't end up with an even number.  I had to go back and add extra leftover dough to a few just so I wouldn't have to start a third pan.

Aside:  does anyone else think it's weird when recipes say to put baked goods X inches apart?  Does anyone actually get out a ruler and check?

Next you'll want to brush these with the milk/sugar/cinnamon glaze.  This will add a little extra sweetness, but more importantly it'll keep the buns from drying out too much while they rise.  

Cover them with a warm, damp cloth and let them rise again until the buns are about doubled in size -- roughly half an hour, maybe a smidge more.

Brush 'em down with the milk glaze again when they're all risen:

And now it's time to bake!  The total baking time is 25ish minutes at 325F.  Halfway through brush them down with the milk glaze again and rotate the pans 180 degrees so that they bake more evenly.

When you're done the tops should be lightly browned and shiny:

Tadaaaa!  

If you're making the icing:  whisk the sugar/milk/lime juice together while the rolls are baking and put it in the fridge to firm up.  Drizzle it over the top once the buns are cooled.  I don't particularly care for icing so most of the time I skip that step.  

I prefer to eat them hot out of the oven with a little coffee.

Yum!

What I like best about these is that they're a-mazing right out of the oven, but they also toast up nicely the next day.  Just split them in half and pop 'em in the toaster oven for a minute or two to heat them back up.  

(2 Ingredient!) Ice Cream Bread

Ever had one of those days where you wanted ice cream for breakfast?

Me too, friend.  Me too.

For reasons related to shame and logistics I've never eaten ice cream for breakfast.  It's one of those things on my bucket list -- right after losing those last stubborn 700 pounds.

Personally I buy ice cream about once a year.  It's not that I don't like it... it's that I love it.  The less we have in the house, the better.

If only there were a way to take just a little bit to work for that afternoon slump, or better yet just save a spoonful for yourself and give the rest away, right?  There'd be the reward of getting ice cream as a treat without the guilt of having an entire pint (or -- gasp -- gallon!) in the freezer there to shame you every time you went looking for the frozen okra.

I am here to rescue you from all that.  You can thank me in the comments section.  ;-)

This ice cream bread takes two ingredients: ice cream and flour.  How is that even possible, you ask?  Ice cream is milk and eggs, folks.  (Bonus high-five to anyone who just thought about the Scott Pilgrim movie.)  That's what you'd be putting in your quick breads anyway.  Unless of course milk and eggs aren't your jam.  That's the beauty of this bread.  If you'd rather use a non-dairy soy- or rice-based frozen desserts, go for it.  I personally grew up on Rice Dream so I know where you're coming from.  Or use frozen yogurt.  Whatever.  Really.  This is open to all flavors and denominations.

And it's super easy.  Just for kicks I wanted to see if I could get everything I needed for this recipe into one shot.  Noooo problemo:

One of the best parts of this is that just about anyone could do it.  Kids, people who aren't kitchen-inclined...  if you've got a bread pan, a bowl, a spoon, and the ingredients, you can make this.  The rule is:  1.5 cups of self-rising flour per pint of ice cream, bake at 350(F) for an hour.  That's it!  Let's get started, shall we?

Ice Cream Bread

Step one is to acquire some of your ice cream of choice.  If you're like me this is done through the self-checkout since you are ashamed of being seen buying nothing but two pints of ice cream and a bag of celery on a Friday afternoon.  Again, there are no rules here -- you choose the flavor and the content.  If you want ultra low-fat vanilla frozen greek yogurt, do that.  Me, I kind of also wanted cake (it was that kind of a week):

The hardest part of this recipe is waiting for the ice cream to soften.  I put mine on the counter as soon as I got home from the store.  It took about an hour to soften up properly.  What you want is soft, not liquid.  When it's ready, scoop it out into your mixing bowl:

Stir or whisk it up a bit so that it's easy to work with.  If you don't, you're going to end up over-working the dough later when you try to put the flour in.

Ahhhh, that's better.  Now, IF you want to add in other mix-ins, this is the time to do it.  Please know that this is entirely optional.  The red velvet wanted to be more red, I thought, so I added in some food coloring (let me stress again, entirely optional):

About 5 drops is what it took to get a nice vibrant pink:

It then sort of begged for about a quarter cup of mini chocolate chips, also entirely optional (it was a rough week,  you guys):

Let me stress this: mix-ins are welcome, but not necessary.  All you need for this recipe is ice cream and the other main ingredient: self-rising flour.  The ratio for this is 0.75 cups of flour to 1 cup of ice cream.

A pint is two cups, meaning that for one pint of ice cream I needed 1.5 cups of self-rising flour.  That's all it takes to make one loaf.  

Tip:  If all you have is regular all purpose flour, add two teaspoons of baking powder and you're good to go.

Mix them up gently until the flour juuuuust disappears.  Don't go nuts trying to mix this to death.  Treat your ice cream with respect.

Alllllmost there...

Done!

Grease or spray down your bread pan to keep the bread from sticking, then spoon it into the pan.  I found the red velvet batter to be much stickier than the ones I've made in the past.

Doc's had kind of a rough week, too, so I made a loaf with coffee-flavored ice cream just for him:

You can see the difference between the textures there.  The coffee loaf is closer to what usually happens.

Pop your loaf in the oven at 350(F).  Total bake time is an hour, just be sure to rotate the pan 180 degrees halfway (this helps it bake more evenly).

Annnnd we're done!  The smell is heavenly, in case you couldn't guess.

Sixty minutes is what it took for mine.  Test yours with a toothpick to see if it's baked through.  (Note: if yours has chocolate chips just be sure you've gone through the bread and not through a chip -- melted chocolate on the toothpick can make it look like your batter's still runny when in fact it's done.)

Let it cool on the rack for 20 minutes before trying to cut this.  That'll save you tears and crumbles, not to mention a burnt tongue.

A Few Words on Flavors:  In the past I've had a lot of success with vanilla bean gelato, butter pecan frozen yogurt, and banana-flavored ice cream (similar to this recipe here).  The sky is the limit.  That said, some flavors just don't seem to shine through all that well.  For example, the red velvet one became rather bland but the coffee one worked really well.  If your first loaf is blah try a different flavor or brand.  The one caveat here is that these aren't super sweet and they're going to have a milder flavor than whatever ice cream you pick.  This definitely isn't your grandma's prized zucchini bread recipe.  But it is quick and it is easy, and for me it's just enough of a treat that it hits the spot when I'm having a lazy day.

Ice Cream Bread

Ingredients:

• 1 pint ice cream (or frozen dessert) of your choice
• 1.5 cups self-rising flour
• can sub: 1.5 cups self-rising flour + 2 teaspoons baking powder
• Optional mix-ins:
• 1/4 cup nuts
• 1/4 cup chocolate or other flavored candy chips (e.g. cinnamon, butterscotch)
• crushed chocolate bar pieces
• 1/4 cup fruit

Directions:

1. Allow ice cream to soften at room temperature for 30-60 minutes or until it can be easily worked with a spoon.
2. Stir ice cream with a spoon (or on low using mixer) for 60 seconds to loosen it up.  If using mix-ins, add at this stage.
3. Add flour to the ice cream, mixing slowly and gently until the flour is no longer visible.  Be careful not to over-mix.
4. Spread batter into a greased bread pan.
5. Bake at 350 degrees for 60 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean (no wet batter).  Rotate pan 180 degrees at the 30-minute mark to help bread bake evenly.
6. Cool 20 minutes on cooling rack before attempting to cut or remove from pan.

The F-Word (A Bread Recipe)

 Some of us -- and I'm not mentioning any names here -- learned to hate the F-word at a terrifyingly young age.

Recently I've come to terms with the F-word being just a word.  If other people have a problem with it, if it makes them uncomfortable, if they choose to be rude about hearing it or rude about saying it, if the thing that it represents is something they have hang-ups about... these are not my problem.

If you're reading this, chances are you've been living in fear of the F-word, too.  You use it as an insult, or you dread hearing it when you're out in public.  It takes away all social value from the target, it gives the speaker a sense of power, and yet to onlookers the person who says the F-word just looks like an idiot.

You know the word I mean, right?  FAT.

Cripes, it's even an offensive shape on the page.

So you can understand why when every duck recipe I saw over New Year's used the F-word in a nice way, when they talked about the joys of rendering it and using it to fry potatoes (truly French fried potatoes, mind you), even to bake with, you can understand why I was so confused and alarmed, right?  FAT is bad.  It's evil.  Morally inferior.  If you use it, heaven forbid if you are it, then there is no lower thing.

But hang on.  We use fats all the time.  Oils, even vegetable and olive oil, are fats.  Omega-3s, which are good for you, those are fats.  Now don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting you need duck fat at all in your diet.  But maybe, just maybe, it wasn't a sin to render it or use it.  I wanted to know more about where duck fat clocks in when compared to other fats, so I did a little research to get a handle on it all.  It turns out that duck fat is closer to butter than olive oil and has a comparable number of calories to butter (no surprises there), but actually has less saturated fat than butter and fewer calories than olive oil.

Does that mean you should replace all your butter with it?  Nope.  But neither is using it in one or two recipes a year going to kill us.  So I let curiosity get the better of me and swapped out butter for duck fat in a simple Italian bread recipe.  The result?  Not too shabby!  It had a savory kind of flavor that is unusual in plain bread, making it a nice accompaniment to a soup I'd made out of some leftover Fusion-Style Hoppin' John from earlier in the week.

I used my Dutch oven to bake this, a la the popular no-knead bread recipe that has been raved about on various food blogs every now and then.  I like the deep crustiness (this is a word) that the Dutch oven gives bread.  Plus my pizza stone shattered a few months ago and I haven't replaced it.

(Unrelated tip: some pizza stones can't actually handle high oven temps, rendering them pretty much pointless, so be sure to check the stone's max temp before you buy it.)

The original recipe is excellent if you prefer your recipes sans duck fat and are just looking for a simple, no-frills Italian bread recipe (bonus: you can let it rise in the fridge overnight and there's no proofing involved for the yeast).  After all, it's not like you can just buy duck fat any old where.  But if you do have some on hand, or if you're one of those curious people out there who, like me, wondered what the fuss was all about, here's one way to use it up.

Consolidated recipe at the end, as you know by now.

F-Word Italian Bread

Makes 2 Loaves

I started off with two cups of bread flour, one tablespoon of brown sugar, two teaspoons of salt, & five teaspoons of yeast (= 2 packages).

White sugar also a-ok.

And, of course, the star of our show: two tablespoons room-temperature duck fat (softened, that is, not melted).  Feel free to sub in butter or olive oil.  Really.

Is anyone else disturbed that this kind of looks like really delicious ice cream?

I mixed these up for a minute or two until the flour looked more like granules than grains:

It doesn't have to be gorgeous at this point.  That comes later.

To this I added 1.75 cups of warm (not hot) water.  Think not so hot that you'd be afraid to put a baby's fingers in it, but not as cool as room temperature ...if that helps.  After about a minute or so I flicked the mixer speed to high and let it whip up for about two minutes so that everything was thoroughly mixed.

Mmmmmm, dough soup.

Now, the original recipe calls for as much as four more cups of flour added here.  I only added three more cups of bread flour (for a total of five cups in the entire recipe).  You may want to do what I did, which is to add one cup at a time until you hit the right texture.  In case you think finding the "right" texture comes naturally to anyone, you can see here where I kept notes on the side of the fridge as I worked.

Dry-erase markers to make notes and grocery lists on the fridge has been a life-changer for me.

As the notes say, watch out for flying flour when you switch the mixer on.  I have a little trick I use for that, but do beware that if you do this you must be very careful to never let the towel fall into the bowl or you will end up with an extraordinary mess.  And never, ever, EVER reach in after it if it falls in.  Mixers can't tell between dough, towels, and hands.  You will lose fingers.

Imitate at your own risk.

By the third cup of flour I had a ball of dough that juuuuuust came together after about three minutes with the dough hook.  It was a very, very stiff dough that -- as you can see from my notes -- had me a little worried.

Is this dough or concrete?  Nobody can tell at this point.

From there I kneaded it on low for six minutes.  I let it sit for seven(ish) minutes before turning on the mixer again for another seven minutes of kneading.  What I got on the other end of this process was silky, elastic, press-it-and-it-bounces-back dough.  It still amazes me every time.

Lighting change optional.

I spritzed it with a little olive oil, turned it over a few times, covered the bowl with a warm, damp cloth, and put it someplace warm to rise.  The original recipe calls for overnight rising in the fridge, which I have no doubt leads to a fluffier texture and and more complex flavor.  (Letting yeast sit is the key to a lot of breads, particularly those that use a biga, including Amish Friendship Bread -- which I will make one of these days... maybe.)

Ah! Godzilla!

About 1.25 hours was what it took at room temperature.  It might take more or less time for you so just check it now and then.  

At that point I split the dough in two, placed each in a separate bowl, gave another quick spritz of oil, and let them sit for another half hour or so.  In that time they doubled again.

Tucking it around itself, like a Popple, is the key to a nice, round loaf or roll.

While the dough was going through the second rise, I cranked the oven up to 425F and put my cast-iron Dutch oven in, including the lid.  Be very, very careful if you go this route: you'll want a good pair of mitts since 425 is hot and the cast iron seems to conduct heat through mitts particularly well.  Also, beware that you don't forget that the lid is just as hot as the pan when you go to move it around later.  It's been more than once that I've burned my fingers that way.

At least 20 minutes with the empty pot in the 425-degree oven should be enough to warm it up.  If you'd rather use a pizza stone or a regular baking sheet, go for it.  It's your bread, bake it however you want.

If you use the Dutch oven like I did, you've got two choices for getting the dough into the pan:  (1) do it in the oven; or, (2) take the pot out and do it on a cooling rack (DO NOT put the hot pot down on your counter!!).  I chose the latter because I fear the oven and I was balancing a camera at the same time.

Plop your dough in gently, quickly brush it down with a little oil (I used more duck fat with a little parmesan cheese and garlic powder mixed in for funsies), put the lid back on (MITTS!!) and slide the whole shebang back into the oven.

Clearly a few finger dents won't kill the loaf, so no need to get too worked up.

20 minutes later remove the lid (MITTS!), watching out for smoke, and place the lid on a cooling rack.  Brush the loaf down again (you could use egg white here if you wanted, or olive oil), spin it 180 degrees, and let it bake for another 15ish minutes.  If your loaf is oblong, like an Italian loaf usually is, you're looking more at 10 minutes rather than 15 since it's not as thick in the middle.

Halfway there!

They say you know an Italian/French loaf is done when you can knock on it and it sounds hollow.  I went by smell and color.  It probably could've taken another few minutes without drying out too much.  Fifteen minutes was about perfect for my (admittedly finicky) oven, yours might require a little adjustment.

Normally I'd only make one loaf in any given week and put the other half of the dough in the freezer, but we were giving one of the loaves away to a friend so I baked the second one immediately after.  If you choose the freezer route, thaw the frozen dough overnight in the fridge and then let it sit on the counter about 20 minutes prior to baking to allow it to come up to room temperature.

Was it life-changing, outer-space bread?  No.  But it was pretty good and it did have a bit of an umami note that was nice with a little soup and red wine.  Doc took a shine to it, but then again he has yet to meet a carb he didn't love.

 I thought it went especially well with some pear preserves we had left over from Christmas.  The texture was dense enough that it'd make good sandwich bread.  And if you've only got butter or olive oil on hand, I honestly think those will serve you just as well.  Still, it's nice to try new things now and then, eh?

Duck!  F-Word Italian Bread

Makes: 2 Loaves

Ingredients

• 2 cups + 3ish cups bread flour
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 5 teaspoons (2 packages) active dry yeast
• 2 tablespoons room-temperature duck fat (can sub softened butter or olive oil)
• 1.75 cups lukewarm water
• 1 tsp oil
• 1 egg white (optional)

Directions 

1. Place 2 cups of flour with the salt, sugar, yeast and duck fat (or oil/butter) in a mixing bowl.  Whisk for 1-2 minutes, until the flour takes on a granular appearance.
2. Add the water and whisk for another 2-3 minutes at a high speed.
3. Add the remaining flour one cup at a time, mixing thoroughly between each.  Add flour until the dough becomes stiff and just a little tacky (sticky) to the touch.  How much is required may depend on the humidity in your area, 3 cups is an approximate value.
4. Once the dough comes together, knead 6 minutes.
5. Allow to rest, untouched, for 7 minutes.
6. Knead another 7 minutes.  The dough should be elastic and velvety to the touch at this point.
7. Splash a small amount of oil over the dough, turn, and cover with plastic wrap or a damp towel.  Set in a warm place and allow to rise until doubled, about 1-2 hours.
8. Punch down the dough, divide in half, and place in separate bowls.  Splash with a small amount of oil, turn, and cover again for another 30-60 minutes.  
9. While the dough rests, turn the oven on to 425 degrees F and place a Dutch oven on the second-to-lowest rack.  Allow the Dutch oven to heat, empty, for at least 20 minutes.  Beware of smoke when opening the oven.
10. Using sturdy oven mitts, uncover the Dutch oven and place one of the dough balls into the pot.  Quickly brush the top with oil, replace the lid, and close the oven door.
11. Bake 20 minutes.
12. Using sturdy oven mitts, uncover the Dutch oven and place the lid on a cooling rack (again, beware of smoke escaping the pot).  Quickly brush the top of the loaf again with either oil or an egg white and bake, uncovered, for an additional 15-20 minutes.  (Time may need to be adjusted for your oven or shortened if using a different pan.)  Loaf is done when the loaf makes a hollow sound when tapped, or when it reaches 190 degrees.
13. Allow to cool in the Dutch oven for 10 minutes.  Using oven mitts, remove the loaf to a cooling rack for an additional 10 minutes before cutting.

Notes: 

• If only making one loaf, wrap the second in plastic wrap or a gallon freezer bag and place in freezer.  To thaw frozen dough: remove the dough from the freezer and allow to defrost overnight in the fridge.  20 minutes prior to baking place the dough on the counter to allow it to come to room temperature.
• This bread is particularly well-suited to aromatic mix-ins such as thyme, rosemary, grated cheese, and roasted garlic or garlic powder.  Feel free to experiment!
• Do be careful of the smoke that can build up in the Dutch oven.  Leaning too close when uncovering it can result in a really painful eyeful of smoke.
• Cutting before the 20 minutes is up can result in a gummy texture on the inside of the bread, so be strong!