Men CAN bake. And the dangerous part is that if you start with this recipe your wife (and your waistline) will want more…

I first saw this recipe on a cooking show with Michael Smith – check here for the original and other variations. However, it is dead simple:

“City Bread”
5 cups of flour
1/2 heaping teaspoon of active dry yeast
2 teaspoons of salt
2 1/2 cups of warm water

Mix dry ingredients together thoroughly, then add water and stir until dough forms. Cover with plastic and let sit in a warm place overnight (8-10 hours). Knock the dough down and move to the (large/2 liter) bread pan. Let it double in size (2-3hrs) and then bake in preheated oven (425F/220C) for 45 minutes.

It is that simple. Some things to watch out for:

• The flour is always sticky – when making it, keep your hands and bowls as greased as you can or floured.
• Likewise, put oiled baker’s paper in each bread pan before transferring – makes for much easier cleanup.
• If you time it right, you can make bread for several days, and have the first one ready in time for supper. Michael says he does it daily timed with supper, but I’m lazy and prefer doing several at once.

Four ingredients – and two of them are water and salt. It’s also inexpensive, since you use hardly any active yeast (unlike with a breadmaker, which goes through yeast like crazy.) That’s because you give the bread time to ferment/create more of its own yeast, by letting it go overnight.

And the result: Best bread I’ve tasted. Nutty and slightly brown throughout (using white flour no less). I eventually had to stop making it, since it was too easy to sit with a hot loaf and some butter and make it disappear ASAP.

But someday, when I am thinner, the most dangerous bread recipe will be cooked yet again in this home…