I can’t believe I missed National Homemade Bread Day yesterday. I guess in the internet fueled New York Times No-Knead Bread frenzy I was lost in making loaf number 4…oh, wait I guess I didn’t miss it after all! I just didn’t know I was participating 😉
It all started last Wednesday when Mark Bittman wrote an article about Jim Lahey’s easy recipe for making crusty artisanal style bread at home. The wild fire started – all across the globe hundreds of folks dusted off their dutch ovens, rummaged in their cupboards for bags of flour and woke up their sleepy stores of yeast. Zig zagging from coast to coast through America, up and down the northern and southern hemispheres, from Germany to Beijing to cities in Japan, folks were pulling out cracking loaves of beautiful crusty homemade bread from their ovens.
I resisted for a few days but finally gave in…dear P could only step aside as I coated our kitchen and myself in flour over the past week while obsessing on types of flour, percent hydration, giving life support to a sourdough starter found in the back of the frig and our lack of a proper bread baking vessel.
While the method described in the article is nearly fool-proof (my first loaf made a mighty fine door stop – how embarrassing being a chef and all…in my defense I didn’t follow the recipe…ok not a good defense but a lesson to you all to follow a recipe the first time!) So here are some things I found out along the way…
First, let’s talk about the cooking vessel – you will need a pot or casserole of some sort with a tight fitting lid that can with stand 450F. It should be heavy – something that can retain heat – so a cast iron or enamel coated cast iron dutch oven or pot, heavy stainless steel dutch oven or pot, ceramic pot or casserole, Pyrex casserole, or Corning ware casserole. The size can be any where from 4 to 8 quarts. Since the dough can be quite soft and spread, the diameter of the vessel will determine to some extent the diameter and height of your loaf.
I do not have any cast iron dutch ovens so my first loaves were made in a All-Clad 6 quart sauce pan which had a 10 ¼” inside diameter and about 4 inches high. Nice crusty loaves though rather wide and not very tall. The lastest loaf was baked in a no-name heavy stainless steel stock pot with a diameter of 9 ¼” and 6 ½” tall (sort of like this one shown here). Since this pot came with a glass lid and I wasn’t sure if it was oven safe, I used a 10” lodge fry pan as the lid. The loaf came out just as crusty though a bit taller. I suspect the height had more to do with the ‘stiffness’ of the dough (as this was the firmest dough I’d made so far) and the way I put the dough into the pot (more like dropping a sticky blob into a red hot cylinder) rather than the actual diameter of the pot. In any case, I’d venture to say you will have success with whatever covered 4-8 quart oven safe vessel you have available. I will probably go back to the All-Clad 6 quart sauce pan for the next loaf.
So here is the recipe I have been using:
2 cups King Arthur bread flour (the *bread* flour gave better results for me than regular all-purpose flour – should be no mystery there!)
1 cup Guisto’s medium whole wheat flour or Guisto’s pumpernickel rye
2 teaspoons of Redmond sea salt
¼ teaspoon of active dry yeast (not sure of the brand – bulk bin Berkeley Bowl)
Mix the above in a 3 or 4 quart bowl.
With a wooden spoon, mix in 1 ½ c of filtered water. The dough should be somewhat firm/stiff but still pretty sticky. It is a ‘wet’ dough not a batter. Cover with plastic wrap and set in a 68-70F place to ferment until bubbly and doubled in volume – 12 to 18 hours give or take a few hours. It took from 18 to 20 hours for the loaves I made. On to the next step.
The dough is really sticky by now. With flour coated hands, turn out the dough onto a very well floured workspace – a counter top or wooden board. Let rest 15 minutes. Now fold four times – as if you were making an envelope. Put the dough fold side down into a very well floured 3 quart bowl and cover with a towel. Let rise for about 2 hours. The dough is ready when you poke your finger about 1/3” into the dough and it does not spring back.
The cooking vessel needs to be preheated in the oven to 450F – this takes about 30 minutes so you will need to crank up the oven about a half hour before you anticipate the dough being ready for baking.
Now the tricky part…hopefully the dough is not stuck to the bowl. Being careful not to burn yourself on the very hot pot, dump the dough into the pot by inverting. If the dough sticks – no big deal just get the dough into the pot…somehow (my last loaf looked like a doughy amoeba but after baking looked less amoeba like.)
Bake at 450F for 30 minutes covered. Remove the lid at the 30-minute mark and continue baking until the top is a nice medium brown – about 20-30 more minutes.
Dump the loaf onto a cooling rack and listen to the crust crackle while it cools. Wait at least 20-30 minutes before slicing.
Variation – I have also tried using 1/3 c sour dough starter with a generous pinch of yeast with success. I’m still trying to waken up the starter so will play with this some more.
From the many posts on eGullet and Chowhound this dough and method is very forgiving. But bread making is like that so if you’ve always wanted to make bread but had been afraid to try why not give it a go?
Happy Day after Homemade Bread Day!
Lot’s of blogger’s here with their No-Knead adventures…many methods to success:
Plate Tectonics for dinner rolls
Toast with many links to other No-Kneaders
