Lazzaro’s Homemade Sourdough

Five years ago, the Lazzaro family added fresh baked bread to their repertoire of holiday recipes. 

My mom has always wanted to try new things, like making homemade pasta, and having a lemon tree, but baking bread has become her specialty. I try to help out as much as a sixteen-year-old can, but she truly has a gift for cooking, and I certainly do not. 

My mom has made several different types of bread. She has made Sesame, Sour Dough, Cheese with Jalapeno etc. My personal favorite though has to be the sourdough. I may be a little biased just because I despise all spicy food, although my brother really loves the Cheese with Jalapeno bread. 

The fresh bread in my household tastes just like the bread you would buy at any supermarket near you. It has a fantastic taste, a texture that feels like fluff inside your mouth, and a sensationally well done crust. 

You can do many things with bread with it, but as my family is very Italian, we will dip it in everything, especially spaghetti pasta, which is another tradition in my family. It has its own wonderful taste but taking the juice from the bottom of the chicken or spreading butter is literal heaven that will make you want to eat more. 

Making the bread will take up a lot of time in your day, but it is totally worth the wait. You have to free up at least 4 hours of your day for it, but if you are bored, why not make bread? 

My family is very casual about in eating the dish. We just rip off a side of it and shove it straight into our mouths even before dinner has begun because it is exciting to hear that my mom is making bread tonight. And if there is still some left, one of us will swarm over it like ravaging birds.

Recipe

• 4 Cups of Flour
• 2 Teaspoons of Kosher Salt
• 2 Teaspoons of Sugar
• 2 ½  Teaspoons of Instant Yeast
• 2 Cups of Lukewarm Water
• Softened Unsalted Butter, For Greasing

Instructions

•  In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, sugar, and instant yeast. Add the water. Using a rubber spatula, mix until the water is absorbed and the ingredients form a sticky dough ball.\
• Cover the bowl with a damp tea towel or plastic wrap and set aside in a warm spot (see page 16) to rise for 1 to 1½ hours, until the dough has doubled in bulk.
•  Set a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat it to 425°F. Grease two 1-quart oven-safe bowls with the softened butter- be generous. Using two forks, deflate the dough by releasing it from the sides of the bowl and pulling it toward the center. Rotate the bowl quarter turns as you deflate, turning the mass into a rough ball.
• Using your two forks and working from the center out, separate the dough into two equal pieces.
• Use the forks to lift each half of the dough into a prepared bowl. If the dough is too wet to transfer with forks, lightly grease your hands with butter or oil, then transfer each half to a bowl. Do not cover the bowls. Let the dough rise on the countertop near the oven (or another warm, draft-free spot) for 10 to 20 minutes, until the top of the dough just crowns the rims of the bowls. 
• Transfer the bowls to the oven and bake for 15 minutes. Reduce the heat to 375°F and bake for17 to 20 minutes more, until evenly golden all around. Remove the bowls from the oven and turn the loaves out onto cooling racks. If the loaves look pale, return them to their bowls and bake for 5 minutes longer. Let the loaves cool for 15 minutes before cutting.