Don’t have any baguette for your New Years Eve dinner? No problem! This recipe will have a loaf of bread (in whatever shape you choose) on the table in 3 hours. We can’t count the number of times we’ve realized last minute that we forget to buy bread for a dinner party. To combat this constant pickle we find ourselves in, we worked on making a quasi baguette loaf that could be made in under 3 hours for cases like these and it turned out perfectly! By ‘quasi’ we mean that technically it’s not the same as a baguette bread in terms of recipe but it can be easily sliced into pieces that are perfect for cheese, salami, and or dipping in EVOO & balsamic! You know the drill. We found that this shape actually ends up yielding the perfect evenly crunchy crust! So now that we’ve tested it we are confident enough to share it with you all in time for hosting! This is a sped up version of the classic 18-24 hour no knead bread, with a new shape. You can just as easily choose to make it in the traditional oval shape which we have also shared photos of below! Both turn out perfectly! Enjoy!

Ingredients

• 3 cups of flour

• 1 pack of active dry yeast (2 1/4 tsp)

• 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt or regular

• 1 1/2 cups of hot water

Instructions

1. Mix all dry the ingredients in a large mixing bowl.

2. Pour in the hot water.

3. Give it a mix using a wooden spoon. Don’t overwork it but make sure you have a nice ball with all the ingredients mixed. IT doesn’t need to be a perfect looking dough at all.

4. Cover the bowl with a kitchen towel set aside somewhere room temperature for 60 minutes or until it’s doubled in size.

5. After it’s risen for the desired period, remove the dough from the bowl and transfer to a nice floured piece of parchment paper. Shape it into a baguette (working it as little as possible) and cover with a towel. Let it sit for 30 more minutes.

6. Meanwhile, place your empty dutch oven in the oven and pre-heat it to 450 F degrees.

7. Once it reaches the temperature, remove your dutch oven. Shape your baguette into a circle that will fit into your dutch oven and using the edges of the parchment paper place the dough into it when ready to bake. Put the lid on and bake for 35 minutes. Then remove the lid and continue to bake another 20 minutes or until the top is nicely golden brown.

8. Remove it from the dutch oven, place it onto a cooling rack and let it cool for 30 minutes.