Pan Cubano - Muy Bueno

I have delightful memories of my childhood when my grandmother would give me 50 cents and send me to the bakery to buy a long loaf of Cuban Bread, wrapped in waxy paper. I was barely tall enough to see over the counter, but I had strict instructions not to accept one from the glass display case. “May I have one from the back, please?” I was told to ask. From the back, you understand, was code for “fresh from the oven”. I should wait until there was something available from the back.
Standing there, shifting my weight from one foot to the other, I was probably a pathetic sight to the employees who often offered me a cookie or fritter while I waited. There were rarely such treats at home so I didn’t mind the wait.
When the freshest loaves were ready, I clutched the warm bread close for the short walk home. The smell of the fresh bread was intoxicating, but plopping the loaf on the table where we’d rip off chunks and slather them with butter or cream cheese was an experience one never forgets.
As an adult, I didn’t live near such a bakery. The “fresh baked bread” at the grocery store lacked the same sort of crisp crust and cloud-soft interior freshness I had cherished as a little girl. I would have to learn how to make my own bread.
I found an old cookbook at a thrift store that pre-dated bread machines and detailed the creation of loaves from the mixing of the yeast with the water to the long kneading to the even longer waits for the rising. It seemed heavenly.
One of the easiest recipes with the shortest amount of kneading and wait was, to my surprise, the Cuban bread of my childhood. It’s inexpensive and fast, but so delicious that you don’t even need butter to enjoy a simple snack.
In one of several moves, the book got left behind or was accidentally sold in a garage sale, but I still have the recipe, which I’ll share with you.

Cuban Bread

5 to 6 cups all purpose flour
4 packages (9 teaspoons) dry yeast
1 tablespoon salt
2 tablespoons sugar
2 cups warm water

· Put 4 cups of the flour, the salt and the sugar in a large bowl and mix them well. Add the water and stir until it starts getting difficult to do so (about 100 strokes). Add the rest of the flour about half a cup at time, stirring while you can and then mixing with your fingers.
· Knead for about 6 minutes until the dough is smooth and elastic.
· Put the dough in a greased bowl, roll the dough over a few times in the bowl so it is nicely greased, and then cover it with a cloth and let it rise for 15 minutes. (When it’s ready for the next step, a dent will remain in the dough when you poke it with your finger.)
· When it’s ready, punch it down and cut in two. Knead each piece for 30 seconds and form each into a loaf (round or oblong, whichever you prefer) and put them on a greased baking sheet or a perforated bread pan. Cut slits along the top of each loaf with a razor or very sharp knife and brush the loaves with water.
· Put the rack on the middle shelf of a cold oven; put a shallow pan filled with water on the bottom shelf. Slide the bread onto the top shelf and turn the oven on at 400 degrees.
· Bake for about 45-50 minutes, turning once about half way through the process.
· The bread is done when it makes a hollow noise when you thump the bottom of it with your fingers.