Letting the loaf cool before supper
The hardest step in the whole recipe is the last one: an hour on the counter, uncut, while the kitchen smells of it.
How it goes
- Turn the loaf out onto the marble as soon as it leaves the oven.
- Set a timer for an hour and leave the kitchen.
- Cut it at supper, from the middle outwards.
A loaf cut too early is gummy in the middle. Everyone knows this, and every week the knife comes out twenty minutes too soon anyway.
Leaving the kitchen is the trick. Supper is cooked around the bread, not beside it.