Stecca! (More Sullivan Street Bread)

As you know, my mom gave me the My Bread cookbook earlier this week, which is by the founder of the Sullivan Street Bakery, the ones who do the super simple bread recipes that practically make themselves.

And the cookbook itself is awesome, because before each recipe it shows a photograph of the main steps of the bread-making process, so you can see if what's in front of you looks like it's supposed to.

Today I made Stecca (p. 77 of My Bread), which are baguette-like sticks of bread that could be used for making sandwiches. This dough recipe was again really simple -- just a few minutes of mixing the ingredients, and then the dough rises for a little less than a day. After that, it takes just a little more kneading, a couple hours more rising, and it's ready to be formed into bread.

The basic recipe makes four steccas (stecci?) that are brushed with olive oil and salt, but you can also press ingredients into the stecca before baking it to make it flavorful (and colorful, too.) The recommendations the cookbook gives are olives, tomatoes, and garlic, so I made one of each, as well as one plain stecca to go with dinner tonight.

The house smells incredible now -- not just of bread but of garlic, tomatoes, and olives. The loaves are beautifully browned, and are now cooling on my wire racks, waiting patiently to be gobbled down.

And don't make fun of the little plain one in the back. It looks completely deformed, but I'm sure it will be just as nice as it's more delicious looking siblings.

grape tomatoes -- $3.29 (with, like, a billion left)
garlic -- $.69
bread flour -- $2.97 (plenty left for future bread)

Total Cost of Stecca: $6.95