Ingredients

• 300 g flour*
• 100 g wholemeal flour**
• 1 and 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 20 g fresh yeast (or 1 teaspoon dry yeast)
• 300 g cold water
• wholemeal flour or bran for dusting bread

Preparation

1. Sift flour into a large bowl (add bran collected on the sieve after sifting wholemeal flour), add salt, crumbled yeast and mix everything with a spoon. Pour in water and mix ingredients with a spoon (briefly, until ingredients come together, about half a minute). Cover the bowl with a plate or plastic wrap and set aside to rise for about 14 hours (minimum 12 hours), preferably overnight (at room temperature, e.g. on the kitchen counter).
2. Dust the worktop with white flour and turn out the dough. Fold the dough three or four times, folding in half each time (the dough will be quite loose and won't form a neat ball).
3. On the kitchen counter, place a clean kitchen towel, dust it with wholemeal flour and place the folded dough in this location with the seam facing down. Cover the dough with the protruding sides of the towel and leave in a warm place in the kitchen for 1-2 hours to double in volume.
4. Half an hour before the end of rising, preheat the oven to 240-250 degrees C, positioning the rack in the lower 1/3 of the oven. Place the covered oven-safe pot, e.g. enameled cast iron, on the rack and preheat it together with the oven.
5. Carefully, using oven mitts, remove the hot pot from the oven and remove the lid. Place the dough in the pot (slide it off the towel, being careful not to dust the bread with too much flour) or quickly and carefully transfer the bread to the pot in floured hands. Be careful, as the pot will be very hot. Cover the pot and bake for 30 minutes. Remove the lid and continue baking until the bread is well browned but not burned for 15-30 minutes (usually I bake for 20 minutes, after 5 minutes of baking from removing the lid I place a piece of aluminum foil on the bread so the top doesn't burn and is perfectly browned).
6. Remove the pot with bread from the oven, open it, after a few minutes remove the bread from the pot and place it on a metal rack to cool completely. Slice after cooling. Stale bread can be made into delicious toast from the toaster.