So MUCH bread!!

So you have FINALLY found a source of great bread, or better yet, learned to bake great bread!  But there are only two of you and you can’t eat it all today!   What to do with it?  Bread pudding and panzanella get old as fast as “bad bread”! 

FREEZE it!  If you let the bread cool and wrap it in heavy duty aluminum foil (no plastic wrap at all!) within 4 hours of baking it and place it in the freezer you can have “fresh baked” bread whenever you want it!   Recipes that are for one loaf are a waste of time and electricity.  If you are going to heat the oven to 450⁰ and run it for an hour and you are only going to make ONE loaf of bread why bother?  No wonder modern homemakers say they don’t have time to bake!

On the day you want to use the bread, remove it from the freezer and place it somewhere out of the way to thaw at room temperature. This can be before you leave for work or a couple of hours before dinner.  Just DON’T un-wrap the bread.  At meal time, heat your oven, or even better, a good toaster oven, to about 300⁰ and place the still wrapped bread inside(this is why you used no plastic to store the bread).  The loaf can stay in the oven as long as you need it to while you prepare dinner.  About 7-10 minutes before serving, tear open the foil and leave the whole thing in the oven.  Voila!   You have fresh bread, even the crust is back!  However, this is your LAST chance. Whatever you don’t finish with this meal is only good for toast or crumbs, you cannot repeat the process.

Now this is for crusty, artisan bread – not for sandwich bread or rye.  Those are handled differently and will be the subject of a later discussion!