My Mother’s Peasant Bread: The Best Easiest Bread You Will Ever Make
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This is the no-knead bread recipe my mother has been baking for 45 years. Start to finish, it can be ready in three hours. It bakes in well-buttered Pyrex bowls — no need to preheat a baking vessel for this recipe — and it emerges golden and crisp with a soft, tender crumb. 🍞🍞🍞🍞🍞
When I tell you that, if forced, I had to pick one and only one recipe to share with you that this — my mother’s peasant bread — would be it, I am serious. I would almost in fact be OK ending the blog after this very post, retiring altogether from the wonderful world of food blogging, resting assured that you all had this knowledge at hand. This bread might just change your life.
The reason I say this is simple. I whole-heartedly believe that if you know how to make bread you can throw one hell of a dinner party. And the reason for this is because people go insane over homemade bread. Not once have I served this bread to company without being asked, “Did you really make this?” And questioned: “You mean with a bread machine?” But always praised: “Is there anything more special than homemade bread?”
And upon tasting homemade bread, people act as if you’re some sort of culinary magician. I would even go so far as to say that with homemade bread on the table along with a few nice cheeses and a really good salad, the main course almost becomes superfluous. If you nail it, fantastic. If you don’t, you have more than enough treats to keep people happy all night long.
The Magic of the Peasant Bread
So what, you probably are wondering, makes this bread so special when there are so many wonderful homemade bread recipes out there? Again, the answer is simple. For one, it’s a no-knead bread. I know, I know. There are two wildly popular no-knead bread recipes out there.
But unlike the others, this is a no-knead bread that can be started at 4:00 pm and turned out onto the dinner table at 7:00 pm. It bakes in well-buttered Pyrex bowls — there is no pre-heating of the baking vessels in this recipe — and it emerges golden and crisp without any steam pans or water spritzes. This is not artisan bread, nor is it trying to be. It is peasant bread, spongy and moist with a most delectable buttery crust.
Genuinely, I would be proud to serve this bread at a dinner party attended by Jim Lahey, Mark Bittman, Peter Reinhart, Chad Robertson, Jeff Hertzberg, and Zoe Francois. It is a bread I hope you will all give a go, too, and then proudly serve at your next dinner party to guests who might ask where you’ve stashed away your bread machine. And when this happens, I hope you will all just smile and say, “Don’t be silly. This is just a simple peasant bread. Easy as pie. I’ll show you how to make it some day.”
Peasant Bread Variations
Once you master the peasant bread, you can make any bread your heart desires — this simple no-knead bread recipe is the foundation of many of the other bread recipes on this site, namely this hugely popular overnight refrigerator focaccia and this simple homemade pizza dough. It’s even the inspiration behind this simple pita bread recipe and these no-knead dinner rolls.
The below post is organized as follows:
- How to Make Peasant Bread, Step by Step
- The Best Way to Store Bread
- Peasant Bread Dinner Rolls
- Peasant Bread Sandwich Bread
- How to Add Seeds and Nuts to Bread Dough
- How to Make Gluten-Free Peasant Bread
- How to Coat the Loaves in Seeds
- How to use Whole Wheat Flour
- How to Bake the Peasant Bread in a Dutch Oven
Many more variations on the peasant bread can be found in my cookbook, Bread Toast Crumbs:
Bread Toast Crumbs
Love the peasant bread? There’s now a book filled with 40 simple bread recipes plus 70 recipes to use up every crumb of every loaf you bake.
How to Make Peasant Bread, Step by Step
First: You need yeast.
This is the yeast I buy exclusively: SAF Instant Yeast. Instant yeast can be whisked into the flour directly without any blooming or proofing. If you want to stick to active-dry yeast, there are instructions in the recipe notes on how to do so. Red Star yeast is great.
Whisk together flour, salt, sugar, and instant yeast. Add lukewarm water.
Mix until you have a sticky dough ball. Let it rise for 1.5 to 2 hours…
… or until it looks like this:
Punch down the dough using two forks.
Then split the dough down the middle again using the two forks.
Because this is a very wet dough, it must be baked in an oven-proof bowl. I am partial to the Pyrex 1L 322 size, but any similarly sized oven-proof bowl will work.
Butter the bowls well; then transfer half of the dough to each prepared bow.
Let the dough rise again until it crowns the rim of the bowl, about 30 minutes.
Transfer the bowls to the oven to bake:
This bread is irresistible when it’s freshly baked, but it also makes wonderful toast on subsequent mornings as well as the best grilled cheese and sandwiches of all kinds.
The Best Way to Store Bread
If you want to store the bread at room temperature for 3 to 4 days, I think the best method is in a ziplock bag. I’ve tried other eco-friendly options, but nothing seems to keep bread freshest — the crumb the softest — better than a ziplock bag. You can re-use the bags again and again.
If you intend to keep the bread for longer, I would freeze it. I often slice bread as soon as it cools completely, transfer the slices to a ziplock bag, then freeze. This way, I know the bread was frozen at its freshest.
A ziplock bag will not prevent the crust of bread from turning soft, which is why I suggest always reheating day-old bread. I use a toaster at breakfast for slices of bread, and I reheat half or quarter loaves in the oven at 350ºF for 15 to 20 minutes when serving for dinner.
Bread revives so beautifully in the oven or toaster.
No-Knead Dinner Rolls
To use the peasant bread dough to make rolls, simply divide the dough into smaller portions and place in a buttered muffin tin as in these No-Knead Thyme Dinner Rolls (pictured below). This recipe for no-knead buttermilk pull-apart rolls is also based on the peasant bread recipe.
No-Knead Sandwich Bread
To make sandwich bread, multiply the recipe below by 1.5 and bake the bread in two buttered 8.5×4.5-inch loaf pans. Made with half all-purpose flour and half King Arthur Sprouted Wheat Flour (no longer available unfortunately), these seed-coated sandwich loaves (pictured below) have a soft and light crumb.
How to Add Nuts and Seeds to Bread Dough
To add seeds and nuts (or dried fruit and cheese), simply stir them into the dry ingredients. This recipe for Quinoa-and-Flax Toasting Bread will offer guidance on how much to add.
How to Make a Gluten-Free Peasant Bread
Making gluten-free peasant bread (pictured below) isn’t as simple as swapping in gluten-free flour for wheat flour. But the process is still relatively simple — in fact, because there’s only one rise, many people find the gluten-free peasant bread recipe to be even simpler than the original. Find the recipe here: Gluten-Free Peasant Bread
How to Coat the Loaves in Seeds
To coat the peasant bread in seeds, as pictured below, simply coat the bowls with everything bagel seasoning or with dukkah or sesame seeds or whatever seed mix you wish. The seed-coated loaves look so beautiful, and it’s amazing how much the flavor of the coating permeates the loaves. Find the recipe here: Everything Bagel Seasoning Peasant Bread
How to Use Whole Wheat Flour
To use whole wheat flour in the peasant bread, simply replace as much as 50% of the all-purpose flour with your favorite whole wheat flour: I’ve been loving the Cairnsprings Mill Trailblazer stone-milled flour. With the Trailblazer, I can use up to 75% of it in the peasant bread, and it yields a beautiful, chewy texture as well as a lovely flavor and aroma.
When using whole wheat flour, you may have to use more or less water — there is no rule as to how much more or less, and it will take some trial and error to get right because all flours absorb water differently. When I use the Trailblazer flour, for example, I reduce the water by at least 50 grams.
If you’d like to learn more about whole wheat flour and stone-milled flours, read this: Easy Sourdough Bread (Whole Wheat-ish)
How to Bake the Peasant Bread in a Dutch Oven
If you’re looking for more of a crackling crusted boule (characteristic of a loaf of sourdough bread) as opposed to the buttery crispness of the peasant bread, you can bake the peasant bread dough in a preheated Dutch oven. I love my Lodge Pre-Seasoned Cast Iron Double Dutch Oven which I’ve been using for years! The Lodge is a great value at around $49, but if you like the idea of making an oblong-shaped peasant loaf, I can’t recommend the Challenger Bread Pan enough, which costs $299. The placement of the handles makes for easy removal and closure of the lid, and it creates beautiful, crusty loaves every time.
There are detailed instructions below the recipe in the notes section, but one thing to keep in mind before you begin is dough hydration. The peasant bread is a very high-hydration dough, meaning there is a lot of water relative to flour. Because baking the peasant bread in a Dutch oven will require some handling of the dough — to shape it into a round and to create some tension — you may want to reduce the water from the start. Consider holding back 20-30 grams of water to make the process more manageable for you.
My Mother’s Peasant Bread: The Best Easiest Bread You Will Ever Make
- Total Time: 2 hours 27 minutes
- Yield: 2 loaves
Description
Notes:
The bread:
This is a sticky, no-knead dough, so, some sort of baking vessel, such as pyrex bowls (you need two 1-qt bowls) or ramekins for mini loaves is required to bake this bread. See notes below the recipe for sources. You can use a bowl that is about 2 qt or 2 L in size to bake off the whole batch of dough (versus splitting the dough in half) but do not use this size for baking half of the dough — it is too big.
Peasant Bread Fans! There is a book: Bread Toast Crumbs, a loaf-to-crumb bread-baking book, filled with tips and tricks and answers to the many questions that have been asked over the years. In the book you will find 40 variations of the master peasant bread recipe + 70 recipes for using up the many loaves you will bake. Learn more about the book here or buy it here.
Ingredients
- 4 cups (512 g) unbleached all-purpose or bread flour
- 2 teaspoons (10 g) kosher salt
- 2 cups (454 g) lukewarm water (made by mixing 1.5 cups cold water with 0.5 cup boiling water)
- 2 teaspoons (8 g) sugar
- 2 teaspoons (8 g) instant yeast, I love SAF Instant Yeast, see notes below
- room temperature butter, about 2 tablespoons
Instructions
- Mixing the dough: In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, sugar, and instant yeast (I love SAF Instant Yeast). Add the water. Mix until the flour is absorbed. (If you are using active dry yeast, see notes below.)
- Let it rise. Cover bowl with a tea towel or plastic wrap and set aside in a warm spot to rise for at least an hour. (In the winter or if you are letting the bread rise in a cool place, it might take as long as two hours to rise.) This is how to create a slightly warm spot for your bread to rise in: Turn the oven on at any temperature (350ºF or so) for one minute, then turn it off. Note: Do not allow the oven to get up to 300ºF, for example, and then heat at that setting for 1 minute — this will be too hot. Just let the oven preheat for a total of 1 minute — it likely won’t get above 100ºF. The goal is to just create a slightly warm environment for the bread.
- Preheat the oven to 425ºF. Grease two 1-qt or 1.5-qt oven-safe bowls (see notes below) with about a tablespoon of butter each. Using two forks, punch down your dough, scraping it from the sides of the bowl, which it will be clinging to. As you scrape it down try to pull the dough toward the center (see video below for guidance). You want to loosen the dough entirely from the sides of the bowl, and you want to make sure you’ve punched it down. Then, take your two forks and divide the dough into two equal portions — eye the center of the mass of dough, and starting from the center and working out, pull the dough apart with the two forks. Then scoop up each half and place into your prepared bowls. This part can be a little messy — the dough is very wet and will slip all over the place. Using small forks or forks with short tines makes this easier — my small salad forks work best; my dinner forks make it harder. It’s best to scoop it up fast and plop it in the bowl in one fell swoop. Some people like to use flexible, plastic dough scrapers for this step.
- Let the dough rise again for about 20 to 30 minutes on the countertop near the oven (or near a warm spot) or until it has risen to just below or above (depending on what size bowl you are using) the top of the bowls. (Note: Do not do the warm-oven trick for the second rise, and do not cover your bowls for the second rise. Simply set your bowls on top of your oven, so that they are in a warm spot. Twenty minutes in this spot usually is enough for my loaves.)
- Bake it. Bake for 15 minutes. Reduce the heat to 375º and bake for 15 to 17 minutes longer. Remove from the oven and turn the loaves onto cooling racks. If you’ve greased the bowls well, the loaves should fall right out onto the cooling racks. If the loaves look a little pale and soft when you’ve turned them out onto your cooling racks, place the loaves into the oven (outside of their bowls) and let them bake for about 5 minutes longer. Remove from oven and let cool for 10 minutes before cutting.
Notes
- The bowls: The cheapest, most widely available 1-qt bowl is the Pyrex 322. Update: These bowls are becoming harder to find and more expensive. As a result, I’m suggesting this cheaper option: the Pyrex 3-piece set. You can split the dough in half as always (see recipe) and bake half in the 1-quart bowl and half in the 1.5 quart bowl. The loaves will not be the same shape, but they will be delicious nonetheless.
- Yeast: I buy SAF Instant Yeast in bulk from Amazon I store it in my fridge or freezer, and it lasts forever. If you are using the packets of yeast (the kind that come in the 3-fold packets), just go ahead and use a whole packet — It’s 2.25 teaspoons. I have made the bread with active dry, rapid rise, and instant yeast, and all varieties work. The beauty of instant yeast is that there is no need to “proof” it — you can add the yeast directly to the flour. I never use active-dry yeast anymore.
- If you have active-dry yeast on hand and want to use it, here’s how: In a small mixing bowl, dissolve the sugar into the water. Sprinkle the yeast over top. There is no need to stir it up. Let it stand for about 10 to 15 minutes or until the mixture is foamy and/or bubbling just a bit — this step will ensure that the yeast is active. Meanwhile, in a large bowl, whisk together the flour and salt. When the yeast-water-sugar mixture is foamy, stir it up, and add it to the flour bowl. Mix until the flour is absorbed.
- Troubleshooting: You can find step-by-step video instruction here.
- Several commenters have had trouble with the second rise, and this seems to be caused by the shape of the bowl they are letting the dough rise in the second time around. Two hours for the second rise is too long. If you don’t have a 1-qt bowl, bake 3/4 of the dough in a loaf pan and bake the rest off in muffin tins or a popover pan. The second rise should take no more than 30 minutes.
- Also, you can use as many as 3 cups of whole wheat flour, but the texture changes considerably. I suggest trying with all all-purpose or bread flour to start and once you get the hang of it, start trying various combinations of whole wheat flour and/or other flours.
- The single most important step you can take to make this bread truly foolproof is to invest in a digital scale. This onecosts under $10. If you are not measuring by weight, do this: scoop flour into the measuring cup using a separate spoon or measuring cup; level off with a knife. The flour should be below the rim of the measuring cup.
- Here’s a printable version of this recipes that’s less wordy: Peasant Bread Recipe, Simplified
- How to Bake the Peasant Bread in a Dutch Oven: Preheat a Dutch Oven for 45 minutes at 450ºF. Dust a clean work surface with flour. After the first rise, turn the dough out onto the floured surface and shape it into a ball: I like to fold it envelope style from top to bottom, then side to side; then I flip it over and use the pinkie edges of my hands to pinch the dough underneath and create some tension. Transfer the dough to a sheet of parchment paper. Let rest for 20 minutes. If you feel your dough is spreading too much you can lift up the sheet of parchment paper, dough and all, and place it in a bowl of a similar size. After the 20 minutes, transfer the dough, parchment paper and all to the Dutch oven. Carefully cover it. Bake 30 minutes. Uncover. Bake 15 minutes more.
- To bake the peasant bread in a loaf pan: If you are using an 8.5×4.5-inch loaf pan or a 9×5-inch loaf pan, you can bake 3/4 of the dough in it; bake off the rest of the dough in ramekins or other small vessels … the mini loaves are so cute. You can also make 1.5x the recipe, and bake the bread in 2 loaf pans. If you have a large loaf pan, such as a 10×6-inch loaf pan, you can bake off the entire batch of dough in it. For loaf pans, bake at 375ºF for 45 minutes.
- How to Bake at Hight Altitude:
- First try the original recipe as written (preferably with a scale). You may not need to make any adjustments. One commenter, who lives at 9200 ft finds the original recipe to work just fine as is.
- If the original recipe doesn’t work, try adding a little bit more water because it rises fast and it is so dry: about a quarter cup for every 512 g of flour.
- Try decreasing the yeast to 1.5 teaspoons.
- If your dough is especially gooey, try decreasing the water by 1/4 cup. But, if you aren’t using a scale, my first suggestion would be to buy a scale and weigh the flour, and make the bread once as directed with the 2 cups water and 512 grams flour, etc.
- Punch the dough down twice before transferring it to the buttered Pyrex bowls. In other words, let it rise for 1-1.5 hours, punch it down, let it rise again for about an hour, punch it down, then transfer it to the buttered bowls.
- Variations:
- #1. Cornmeal. Substitute 1 cup of the flour with 1 cup of cornmeal. Proceed with the recipe as directed.
- #2. Faux focaccia. Instead of spreading butter in two Pyrex bowls in preparation for baking, butter one 9×9-inch glass baking dish and one Pyrex bowl or just butter one large 9×13-inch Pyrex baking dish. If using two vessels, divide the dough in half and place each half in prepared baking pan. If using only one large baking dish, place all of the dough in the dish. Drizzle dough with 1 tablespoon of olive oil (if using the small square pan) and 2 tablespoons of olive oil (if using the large one). Using your fingers, gently spread the dough out so that it fits the shape of the pan. Use your fingers to create dimples in the surface of the dough. Sprinkle surface with chopped rosemary and sea salt. Let rise for 20 to 30 minutes. Bake for 15 minutes at 425ºF and 17 minutes (or longer) at 375ºF. Remove from pan and let cool on cooling rack.
- #3. Thyme Dinner Rolls
- #4 Gluten-free
- #5. Everything Bagel Seasoning Bread. Simply coat the buttered bowls with Everything Bagel Seasoning.
- #6: Whole Wheat Peasant Bread. Use as much as 50% whole wheat flour.
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 32 minutes
- Category: Bread
- Method: Baked
- Cuisine: American
This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure policy.
6,615 Comments on “My Mother’s Peasant Bread: The Best Easiest Bread You Will Ever Make”
I made this bread and it turn out so good even my husband who hates bread, with a purple passion (our local saying), ate 3 slices of it at one time with butter on it straight from the oven! He said it smells go good and this is first time he has said anything about my bread and I make bread ALL THE TIME! Also gave a friend one loaf and he ate all of it before he stop and HE also doesn’t like bread either! Wish I could show you pictures of mine because I took pictures of the process and saved to my computer and then put them in a word document with your recipe on it for keeps (I have your name on document as reference). I will be dragging out this recipe to use from now on all the time! I used my big Cades Creek round casserole dish to do the first rise in then I buttered my two biggest round Pyrex prep bowls (1.75 quarts each ) and they turned out great!
I’m so happy to hear this, Judy!! 🤣🤣🤣 Thanks for sharing your notes, and thanks for converting two bread haters into believers!!
I’ve made this recipe several times now! It’s so easy to make and tastes amazing. So much better than getting store bought bread.
Great to hear Eliana!
I made this bread and it was easy delicious. I tried the gluten free bread and it’s doughy and I followed the directions but something went wrong .Can you help me.
Hi! What type of gluten-free flour did you use? And did you use a scale to measure? And to confirm, you used this recipe?
You say to punch dough down. You didn’t say when and it didn’t show it in the video.
Hi Barbara! “punch” is when you deflate the dough with the two forks.
This is my go-to recipe for bread, gluten free or not. For the gluten free flour, I used Bob’s Red Mill gluten free one to one baking flour. After a few tries of tweaking the recipe, the difference is that I use 1 3/4 cups of water and bake for 20 mins. I live in a very humid area of deep south Texas. In my experience, these changes result in giving the bread a good crumb. Thank you, Ali.
Great to hear! Thanks for writing and sharing these notes 🙂 So helpful for others.
Superb recipe! I baked it in a Pulllman loaf pan and it was perfect. Since this disappears quickly in our house and it is mostly hands-off with minimal dishes especially when weighing, it will make a regular appearance. I used active dry since it is what I have right now (started baking artisan breads recently). I usually dissolve AD yeast by microwaving the water in a glass measuring cup for 50 seconds to get it to the110F mark and then just stirring in the yeast and sugar. It’s usually the first step I do so it’s ready by the time I’ve prepped the other ingredients and baking vessel.
Thank you for sharing!
Great to hear, Phyllis! Thanks so much for writing and sharing all of your notes 🙂
Can i substitute sourdough starter in place of idy?
Yes! Omit the yeast and sugar; plan for a long slow rise.
This has become my go-to recipe to bring to family potlucks, friends’ parties, and holiday gatherings. I make it as foccacia in a 1/4 size sheet pan, typically half with Everything But the Bagel seasoning and half with crushed rosemary, kosher salt, and minced garlic.
I’d love to know if you have any suggestions for using it as the base for pizza? That might be my next experiment with this versatile dough!
Hi! And great to hear 🙂 This actually is the base recipe for my pizza dough recipe: Simple, 4-Ingredient Homemade Pizza Dough and focaccia: Overnight, Refrigerator Focaccia = The Best Focaccia Bread Recipe. And if you want to make Sicilian-style pizza, I use focaccia as the base: Sicilian Style Pizza Recipe
Hope that helps!
This is fantastic and so easy & quick. I came home from work mixed it up —rose in one hour. I used a 1 quart and a 1.5 quart, so the smaller bowl was ready first and I baked that left the other one rise in the oven. I have a proof setting on my oven which is perfect. Can’t wait to try different things on the top and inside the bread. No
Great to hear, Lonna! Thanks so much for writing and sharing all of this 🙂
Can we male peasent bread eith sourdough starter?
Yes! Omit the sugar and yeast, add 100 grams sourdough starter, plan for a long, slow rise.
Hey! I’m wondering if you can make this in a 9×13 loaf pan? If you want a loaf shaped bread. Thanks!
Yes! Just wondering: is it a 9×13 loaf pan? Or more like a 9×5 inch loaf pan?
If you make 3/4 of the recipe, it’s perfect for a standard loaf pan. 1.5x the recipe is great for 2 loaf pans.
I do bake the 4 cups of flour peasant bread in a Wilton 9×5 loaf pan, lined with parchment paper. It comes out great! Love your recipes!
Great to hear, Nancy! Thanks for writing 🙂
First, thank you for sharing your recipes, I love your blog and videos. I bought your book and I love it SO much that I will get one for a friend as a birthday present.
I made this bread today and despite having some issues my other half and I devoured one of the loaf in one go!!
The issues I had are:
The second rise took 45 minutes or so (I’m in the UK so do I need to leave it for longer?).
The bread was undercooked (I don’t know if eating undercooked bread is bad for you but it was so yummy).
The colour of the final product was slightly pale. I did bake it for 40 minutes.
I did follow the instructions from A to Z, however I don’t have the same bowls as you. Mine are slightly larger (1 litre each), and the shape is slightly taller than wider.
It’s not super dramatic but I don’t know (17cm Dia/10cm H).
I want to try again but maybe baking for longer? Any tips, please?
Thanks again for being the best!!! This is my first time making this beauty 🙂
Hi Vivi! Thank you for your kind words and thank you for writing 🙂
Having troubleshooted with many people from the UK over the years, I can share a few things that have helped: use bread flour if possible (and unbleached) and possibly reduce the water if you found the dough to be too wet.
Are you using a scale to measure?
It sounds as though the bowls are the same volume as the ones I use (1 L). It’s OK that the second rise took 45 minutes — it’s best to be patient and to rely on the visual cues: the dough crowning the rim of the bowl before baking.
I am generally very unsuccessful when using yeast. I followed this recipe down to the instant yeast and it turned out amazing!
Great to hear, Jamie! Thanks for writing 🙂
This bread is delicious! My 1st bread attempt was a horrific sourdough fail. This just redeemed me in the eyes of my family, haha
Woohoo! Great to hear, Liani. Thanks for writing 🙂 🙂 🙂
I made the focaccia the other night and this tonight. So easy and tasty! I love the little loaves. The buttery, crispy crust is amazing. I may try with half bread flour and half white wheat next time.
Great to hear, Tricia! Thanks for writing 🙂
This is a wonderful bread. I have made it many times. It’s perfect for when you don’t have the time for all the kneading and extended proofing times but just NEED that bread! I would like to know the nutritional information for it. Do you have those details.
My dough rose as you instructed. But when I baked, it sunk?? Any thoughts why that would happen?
Hmmm… it possibly overproofed during the second rise. How long was the second rise roughly?
Good morning. Would I be able to make this dough a day before and bake the next morning?
Yes. You can do this several ways. But I’d suggest mixing the dough, and sticking it in the fridge immediately in a lidded vessel. It will rise in the fridge. Remove it when you are ready to bake and proceed with the recipe.
I have been dying to use this recipe for a couple of years now and finally got round to doing it and very quickly realised that my oven is too small (I only have a very small kitchen – hence a very small oven. The bread itself, I think, could have done with about another 10/15 minutes but if I left it in the oven any longer I would have needed a hammer and chisel. The top of the loaves were almost black with the sides not browning at all which sort of proves the oven is just not big enough even though they were in for slightly longer than was required. I was wandering though, how the recipe would convert to using in a bread maker. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I am very new to cooking and baking (I am 74) so be gentle with me.
Hi Denis! Bummer to hear about the bread being too large for your oven. Sadly, I have never used a bread machine, so I can’t really advise there, but my sense is that it would work really well. I might reference some other bread machine bread recipes and see if the proportions (cups of flour, water, etc.) are similar.
One thought: do you have ramekins? Or any other small baking dishes? You could make a half recipe of the peasant bread, let it rise once, then deflate it, and divide the dough among buttered ramekins. Even if you just had one ramekin, you could butter it, place dough in it so that it fills it 3/4 full. Let it rise till it crowns the rim; then bake it. You can store the dough in the fridge and bake off mini loaves as needed.
I love this recipe. It is my favorite recipe, and I have given it to at least for other people who make it and love it also. I also use this recipe to make faux focaccia
Great to hear, Jill! Thanks for writing 🙂
When making this in two loaf pans (1.5 x the recipe), do you bake it the entire time at 375? or do you still start it at 425 for 15 minutes? Thanks!
Hi Ali, For two loaves (1.5 x recipe), do you bake at 375 the entire 45 minutes, or do you still start at 425 for 15 minutes? Thanks!
Hi! It’s 45 minutes @375F for the entire time 🙂
I make this now all the time, everyone is so impressed. Tastes like crumpets toasted! Very hard to wait for it to cool and to make it last!
Great to hear, Sarah! Thanks so much for writing and sharing 🙂
I have found both Pyrex and anchor hocking one qt. bowls and casseroles for sale on eBay. No chips, no cracks, good condition. They look as if they would be great for baking the peasant bread in.
Yes, absolutely! Go for it 🙂
I am making the bread in a dutch oven and I preheated the dutch oven, but I buttered the inside of the dutch oven as I wasn’t sure if I should or not and after reading suggestions online, it was suggested to do so so you don’t burn or break the dutch oven.
The inside of my dutch oven turned a dark brown after preheating it in the oven. I hope that washes awayand I didn’t ruin it. Also, you mention to put the bread on the parchment paper at 425. Doesn’t parchment paper burn after 425? So I just put the bread in the dutch oven without the parchment paper. Please advise if I should have buttered the dutch oven first and weigh in on the parchment paper. It smells good, but we’ll see…..
Hi Laura,
I do not butter the pan when preheating it.
The parchment paper will not burn — all brands advise against using it above a certain temperature but the worst that happens is that it darkens a little bit. I use parchment paper at 550ºF convection roast and nothing happens. Do not, however, ever use parchment paper under the broiler, where it will catch fire.
I love this recipe. It’s easy to make and the bread is delicious. This recipe is so forgiving. I made mistakes several times and the bread always turned out good so I thought I’d made it right. Till this time when I discovered my errors. My bread looks like your picture this time.
So nice to hear this, Cherie! Thanks so much for writing 🙂
The crusty exterior and soft, warm interior make it the perfect addition to any meal. This peasant bread recipe from your mother sounds amazing! I love how you emphasize its simplicity and ease of preparation. I can’t wait to try this recipe and enjoy the comforting aroma of homemade bread filling my kitchen.
I have made this 50 times at least. My first attempts at making bread when I started. I have encouraged many others to make bread with this easy recipe. I make a 3 cup loaf and adjust the ingredients. I use honey in place of sugar. I add oats on top and flax seeds in the bread. Everyone loves it. I am going to try yeast rolls. I do use the Dutch oven as many have suggested but it works with whatever u have as well. Thanks for sharing this recipe!
Great to hear, Lisa 🙂 🙂 🙂 Thanks so much for writing and sharing all of these notes. All sounds delicious.
I love your recipes.
Will try them.
Hello!
I just discovered your site and this recipe. I love your detail and recipe variations which is wonderful for someone like me just venturing into baking.
My first attempt with your peasant bread was a big hit!
Question – I’m attending a siblings brunch tomorrow and would like to bring it fresh out of the oven. Can I prep today and somehow store to bake in the morning?
Thanks and look forward to learning more from you, Alexandra! 🙂
Hi! Apologies for the delay here… what did you end up doing?
One thing you can do is mix the dough and stick it in the fridge immediately — it will still rise in the fridge so be sure to store it in a lidded vessel that will allow it to grow, something like a 4-qt bowl. The following day, you can transfer it immediately to the buttered bowls and proceed with the recipe. The second rise (as in the one in the bowls) might take a little longer bc the dough will be cold.