Rustic Pan Bread

Rustic is such a fabulously useful word. Have dents and scratches in your furniture? Oh - it's now rustic furniture. Is the landscaping around your house lacking the finesse of the neighbor's? No worries -it's a rustic landscape. Do you have a crappy old pan and only about an hour* to throw something together for dinner? Make Rustic Pan Bread!

I shared this recipe last year, but I feel like it's been buried. I'm re-posting it under a new name - although the "rustic" applies more to the state of the pan I use than the actual bread. Hopefully with the "rustic" title it will be less intimidating for some of you as well. I've found that this bread is kind of hard to mess up. I love that kneading is not required and you can top this bread with all sorts of things. One of my favorites is melted butter and dried rosemary.



Rustic Pan Bread
(mom - is this originally your recipe?)

2 cups warm water
1 Tablespoon sugar or honey
1 Tablespoon yeast
4 cups flour
2 tsp salt
melted butter

In a bowl dissolve sugar and yeast in warm water. Let sit for a few minutes. Stir in flour and salt. Dough will still be quite sticky (see photo).



Place in greased bowl, cover and let rise* until double in size.



Grease a small cookie sheet/jelly roll pan. Spread dough flat onto sheet with palm of hand.



Spread melted butter on top. You can also add Garlic Parmesan Blend, sesame seeds, dried rosemary, or just butter! (hm. Looks like I went a little heavy on the butter this time)


Let dough rise again*. Bake 400 degrees for about 20 minutes. Cut into squares to serve.



*note: Rising times will depend on the temperature of your kitchen. The last time I made this bread it rose really quickly and it was done and ready to eat in about an hour.