What could be more appealing on a weekend than to fill the kitchen with the good smell of bread baking? I like to start my bread dough when I get up, and for lunch I reward myself with a fresh-from-the-oven pizza. Perhaps I’ll share a baguette over dinner with friends, and have some mini-loaves to put in the freezer and enjoy in the weeks ahead—all made from the same dough. If there are children around, I announce what I’m up to, and invariably they will want to join me and pitch in. For them, there is something magical about making bread-the way it rises quietly in a bowl under a cover, the fun of punching the dough down, forming the loaves, and creating steam in the oven just before baking. To say nothing of how good it tastes. I started baking bread in the sixties, when I persuaded Julia Child to work out a recipe for French bread that could be baked in an American home oven. In those days, it was almost impossible to buy a crusty baguette. Now there are artisan bakers all over who have mastered the techniques, and there’s really no need to bake one’s own. But it is such fun.

　　

Ingredients

1 package (1 scant tablespoon) active dry yeast

　　1 1/4 cups warm water

　　2 teaspoons kosher salt

　　3 tablespoons whole-wheat flour

　　3–3 1/2 cups all-purpose white flour

　　

Step 1

Put the yeast and 1/4 cup of the warm water in a large bowl (or the bowl of an electric mixer, if you want to use that), and stir it around with your finger to make sure it dissolves. Add the remaining water, the salt, the wholewheat flour, and 3 cups of the white flour. Mix well, adding more white flour if the dough seems too wet. It should be a moist dough that you can handle with floured hands. Now knead it by hand, on a floured work surface, or in the mixer, using the dough hook (you can also use a large food processor). Continue to knead until the dough is smooth and elastic, 8–10 minutes, flouring as necessary but still keeping the dough moist; use a light touch.

　　

Step 2

Clean your mixing bowl, and return the dough to it. Cover the bowl with a kitchen towel or plastic wrap, and let the dough rise at room temperature, or even a bit cooler than that if possible, until tripled in size. At this point, if you want a pizza, cut off a piece (or two) of dough a little smaller than a baseball, and follow the directions on the facing page for making it. Return the bulk of the dough to the clean bowl, cover, and let rise again, this time until doubled in volume.

　　

Step 3

After the second rise, turn the dough out and punch it down. If you have extracted dough for two small pizzas or one larger one, you’ll have enough left for four mini-baguettes and one 15-inch baguette.

　　

Step 4

For the minis, tear off four pieces of dough smaller than a baseball. Pat them into flat ovals, fold in half lengthwise, and pinch the ends and seam to hold the dough together. With your hands, roll each one out into a small baguette shape about 4 inches long. Arrange the loaves, pinched side down, on a floured kitchen towel, leaving space between, and drape another towel on top. Let rise for 30 minutes.

　　

Step 5

To make the 15-inch baguette, pat the dough into an oval, fold in half lengthwise, and pinch the ends together. Now make a lengthwise trench with the side of your hand down the middle, again fold lengthwise over the trench, and pinch the ends together. Flour your work surface again, and roll the dough out with your floured hands, starting in the center and moving them outward as you roll to a length of about 15 inches. Transfer the dough to a floured kitchen towel, positioning it seam side up, and fold the towel over to cover. Let rise for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, if you have a large baking stone, slide it onto your oven rack and preheat the oven to 450°. If you don’t have a stone, use a baking sheet and let it preheat.

　　

Step 6

When you are ready to bake, sprinkle cornmeal along the far long side of another baking sheet, and with the help of the kitchen towel, flip the bigger baguette over onto it. Make three diagonal slashes across the top of the dough, then, holding the pan over the hot baking stone or sheet, jerk it so that the baguette slips off and onto the hot surface. Shut the oven door quickly while you transfer the mini-baguettes to the baking stone in the same way, slashing each of them just once across the top diagonally.

　　

Step 7

Now you have to create some steam. The simplest way is to put about a dozen ice cubes into a roasting pan and set that on the oven floor. I have an old-fashioned iron (pre-electric) that I heat up on one of the rings of my gas stove full-force for at least 15 minutes, and when all the baguettes are in the oven, I slip in a pan of cold water and with tongs pick up my fiercely hot iron and plop it into the pan. A great whoosh of steam rises, and I shut the door quickly.

　　

Step 8

Remove the small breads after 15 minutes, and let the full-sized baguette bake another 10 minutes. Cool all the loaves on a cooling rack.

　　

To make Pizzas

Step 9

Either make two small pizzas or one larger one with the dough you have set aside. Pat, roll, and, if you feel daring, twirl on your fist the piece of dough for a pizza until you have shaped it into a fairly thin circle of dough the size you want—about 5 inches for the smaller pizza. Set it on a baking sheet or in a tart pan with a removable rim or on a paddle sprinkled with cornmeal, and lightly brush a little olive oil over the surface. Now fill it with whatever you have on hand that appeals to you: a small fresh tomato, sliced, or a couple of spoonfuls of tomato sauce; cheeses that need to be consumed (you’ll be surprised at how many cheeses are good on pizza—and you can use more than one); if you want meat, strips of ham, prosciutto, and sausage are all good; lightly cooked aromatic vegetables such as artichoke hearts, leeks, mushrooms of all kinds, and tangy greens marry well with other filling elements, or are good just alone; and eggplant, along with strips of roasted peppers or some ratatouille (page 132), is the best. Don’t forget possibly using condiments such as black or green olives as an accent. When you’ve filled up that circle of dough, put the baking sheet or the tart pan bottom (remove the rim) in the oven. Or, if the pizza is on a paddle and you are using a baking stone, slip the pizza onto the hot stone, using a firm jerking motion (and maybe the help of a spatula to get it there with the topping intact). Bake at the hottest setting of your oven (preheated) for about 12 minutes or until the dough around the edge is crusty and lightly browned. Remove with tongs or a spatula and eat warm.

　　The Pleasures of Cooking for One by Judith Jones. Copyright © 2009 by Judith Jones. Published by Knopf. All Rights Reserved.Judith Jones is senior editor and vice president at Alfred A. Knopf. She is the author of The Tenth Muse: My Life in Food and the coauthor with Evan Jones (her late husband) of three books: The Book of Bread; Knead It, Punch It, Bake It!; and The Book of New New England Cookery. She also collaborated with Angus Cameron on The L. L. Bean Game and Fish Cookbook, and has contributed to Vogue, Saveur, and Gourmet magazines. In 2006, she was awarded the James Beard Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award. She lives in New York City and Vermont.