SOUR MILK PEASANT BREAD

Steps:

• 1. In a bowl big enough to make your bread in, get the starter going by sprinkling the yeast over the sour milk & honey {or whatever sweet you use to feed the yeast beasties}. Set aside in a warm place, covered with a bit of plastic wrap & a towel until ready to finish the bread. This process doubles as proofing your yeast, but keeping yeast in your freezer makes it last almost indefinitely {Well, I had yeast in freezer for almost 10 years anyhow!}.
• 2. Preheat the oven to 350-375°F {Glass, preheat to 350°F}. Grease 2 baking vessels well-again, I use lard as nothing works as well for bread as lard does.
• 3. Add the remaining ingredients to your starter and work until you are happy with it. -Can leave it relatively wet & unkneaded {this is for those days where everything hurts & you wanna just cry; results in a more crumbly quick bread}. -Can do a full out workout kneading until nice, smooth & few crevasses in the bread {this holds up well for hearty sandwiches}. This is a great option for teaching new bread bakers how to knead bread; there is an art to it & poking it is - not - kneading it!!
• 4. Divide your dough in 2 & place in greased vessels, turning once to coat dough so it will not dry out or stick. Cover dough ball with plastic wrap-not the vessel itself. Drape a towel over it all {plastic wrap keeps your towel from being incorporated into the dough & getting nasty}. Place in a warm area. Let rest & raise until doubled in size.
• 5. Bake 25 minutes or until golden brown; longer if you want crust to be darker or crunchier.
• 6. Remove from oven to cool. If you wish, you can brush a bit of melted lard on the top of the crust to soften it a bit. If you want hard crusty true peasant bread, leave the lard off the the crust.
• 7. NOTES: -Glass needs to be cooked at a lower temperature because it conducts the heat so well. -I use lard for baking bread as there is no comparison in the end result. Lard is slowly creeping into everyday life for me, while shortening & margarine are becoming curse words in my household; & lard is probably better for you than butter too. Lard is being used in almost everything I make or bake these days. -If you are doing little to no kneading & therefore have a very wet dough, use meat serving forks {they are bigger than a normal eating or a carving fork & work very well for this} to divide dough & move to baking vessel. -I bake the majority of my breads these days in bowls. The bowls I use are 2 ½ quart Anchor Hocking bowls as they are a bit more straight sided and work better for sandwich making. Depending on the thickness you cut it, 1 slice, cut into 2 top to bottom, works for a hearty & filling sandwich. Pyrex bowls work too, but I got the Anchor Hocking bowls at the thrift store dirt cheap!! -If you want a more rustic round of bread, or if you have a well kneaded, smooth ball of dough, just bake on a flat pan lined with parchment paper with a bit of cornmeal thrown on it to keep from sticking.. -If you want a traditional sandwich loaf, by all means, bake in a normal bread pan.