A way-too-thorough documentation of making the easiest (yeast) bread in the world.

In fact, I think all of these pictures will make it seem as though it took more time to make than it actually did. Seriously, the most difficult part of all (for me) was slicing it up because I don't have a good, sharp serrated knife. Slicing it up took twice as long as any of the other steps. And when I had finished slicing, I looked at those chunks and thought, "Eh. It doesn't look that great." But then my whole family went nuts. My six-year-old was eating the crust like it was candy. Crust. He never, never, never eats crust. So I decided to make this again today and document it. Hayley, you must try this. Today. (Let me know how it goes.)

Okay, I do this first step at night before I go to bed because it has to sit for 12-18 hours. Mix:
1 1/2 cup medium warm water (120 degrees)
1/4 tsp yeast
2 tsp salt in a bowl. Stir a bit.
Stir in 3 cups flour. Last time I used all purpose flour. This time I used 2 cups all purpose and 1 cup whole wheat.
It takes about a minute or two to get it to look like this:
Spray some Saran wrap with non-stick spray, cover, and let sit on your counter for 12-18 hours.
In the morning (early afternoon or whenever) it will look like this:
Dump it out onto a floured surface. It will look like this and will sort of work it's way out of the bowl with a little help from your fingers. Just takes a sec.
Sprinkle flour on top.
Roll it out to a kinda circle-like shape. I thought this step would be more difficult. I thought it would be super sticky and hard to work with, but with some flour (not even all that much) it rolled out quite nicely and had a nice elastic consistency.
Fold in the edges so it forms a smaller circle.
Plop it upside down on a floured plate and cover with more non-stick sprayed Saran wrap (loosely). Let it sit for another 1-2 hours on your counter.
After a couple of hours, it looks like this:
Preheat a roast-type dish and oven-safe lid in your oven to 450 degrees (I'm sure you were all curious what that looks like):
When the oven has finished preheating, carefully take out the dish and plop the dough upside down into the hot dish. (No need for non-stick spray). Cover with the lid and bake at 450 for 27-30 minutes. Then take of the lid and bake for 7-10 minutes more.
Here's your final product: European artisan bread, crusty on the outside and soft on the inside.
By the way, the general consensus was that the wheat bread tasted better than the all-white bread.