There's something so basic, so fundamental about baking your own bread, don't you think? For years, I have struggled with this simple task, with not so great results.

Recently I have been ticking off a long list of things I tried but never mastered. Bread making was near the top of the list.  Over the past year, I have not only mastered bread making, but I've acquired a lot of tools of the trade.

Yep, having the right tools really helps.

I found it aggravating to think of all those women I read about in novels, pulling that warm, aromatic loaf of bread from cast iron stoves, clay ovens on the prairie, even from the embers of camp fires.

Why couldn't I do it in my modern kitchen with wonderful appliances, when they were so successful in such primitive conditions?

I love a challenge!

Determined, I began to bake. It was at this point that I discovered King Arthur Flour. At first, I just bought it because the bag indicated the flour was for baking bread.

Then I discovered that King Arthur has a terrific web site, dedicated to baking. They also feature recipes, many of which I tried, with varying degrees of success.

I began to realize that I needed to add some tools in my kitchen. King Arthur features a lot of nice equipment to use in baking.  I already had some of it, but I have added some terrific items that I really like, which include a clay loaf baker, a baking stone, and a whisk just for beating dough.

I baked some terrific doorstops at first. I considered glazing them and giving them away as gifts, but rethought that concept.

As time went on, I began to get the hang of kneading the dough, getting it to the proper stage to rise sufficiently. I even purchased sour dough starter,not once but twice.

The problem was, all this takes a lot of time. I don't always have it. Sometimes I would have to rush out on a work assignment, only to return to fallen dough. Or, the sour dough starter, which must be maintained weekly to retain it's potency and freshness, would sit forgotten in the fridge.

I was still enthused about having fresh bread, but it had to be easier to accomplish.

This recipe does it for me. I found it the easy way - I just searched on the phrase "crusty bread" in Google and up popped this little jewel.

It was featured in an article on the New York Times and is an adaptation of a recipe from “Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day,” by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë François (Thomas Dunne Books, 2007). My daughter had just recently tried to order this book for me for my birthday, only to find it was on back order. This recipe just confirmed that it is worth waiting for the book.