NYT No-Knead Bread Recipe

2: Number of shoplifters I’ve seen chased through Indigo bookstore

8: Number of pomegranates I bought tonight. They’re from California; I had to buy 8 to get the case price.

4: Number of loaves of bread I’ve baked this week. Tonight’s is the best so far- I’m getting better at timing how long to bake with the cover on and off to brown the crust. I love the crust. When I was a kid, I loved the white fleshy bits the best, I would save those for last, but now I love the flavour of the crust. Yummy. I’m going to buy some whole wheat flour this weekend to try and get more fibre. Here’s my version of the recipe, it makes a loaf for 1 person (me), but it could feed 4 people that only wanted one wedge, the size of a baseball:

Mix together:
1.5 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1/8 tsp yeast (~0.6mL)
Then add water (1/2 cup + 1/4 cup + 25mL) I’ve been using dry measuring cups to measure the water. Sometimes the extra 25ml is not required, sometimes even more water is required, as described below.
That’s all the ingredients. You will also need a covered ceramic casserole dish, or cast iron dutch oven, or stainless steel pot. It doesn’t really matter, as long as it can accommodate your bread in a shape that you like and it MUST have a lid. And it must be able to withstand 450F oven temperature.

I mix the ingredients in a plastic storage container, with a spoon, until all the flour is taken up. You should not have a runny mess; there should be no excess liquid or flour, if there is, adjust accordingly– that’s why I sometimes need the extra 25mL water. Then cover with lid and let sit overnight(12-18 hours) or until you feel like dealing with it. I’ve done 12-24 hours, it’s all fine, I think. That’s the first rise. The dough is ready when you see lots of bubbles on top, and a bit of liquid, and it’s about doubled in size.

For the second rise (at least two hours before you want to bake), turn the dough onto a floured surface (I use a dinner plate), sprinkle top with flour and fold over once or twice. Dough should be very soft, smooth and pleasing to touch (it’s pretty amazing). Shape into a ball, using enough flour so it’s no longer sticky to touch. The original instructions tell you to place the dough on floured tea towel, ugly side down, and make sure you put enough flour so it doesn’t stick to the towel- this has happened to me twice. But don’t put too much flour or else you’ll end up with a bunch of flour baked onto your bread– I don’t like that; it happened to me the first time round. Then flour the top and cover up with the tea towel. I’ve also done the second rise on a floured plate, wrapped in a tea towel, and I put the whole thing in the microwave. My current method is to put the dough back into the same plastic container with lid, floured lightly, and covered. Leave it there until you want to bake (at least 2 hours, I’ve done up to 6, again, I don’t think it really matters). If you need a warm area for the rise, heat up some water in a bowl in the microwave for 2 minutes and then put the bread container/towel/plate in the steamy microwave to rise.
30 mins before you want to bake, preheat oven to 450F with your baking dish and lid inside the oven on the middle rack. I use a 1.5L casserole dish with glass lid.
When the oven reaches 450F unwrap bread- it shouldn’t bounce back easily when you poke it, and then dump it into the casserole dish- so now ugly side is up. I find that the sides often stick to the side of the plastic container, so I need a spatula to get everything out. Shake the dish back and forth if the dough is very uneven. Then cover with lid and put in oven for ~18 mins (it will depend on your oven), at this time you should be able to smell nice bread smells. If you don’t, then wait a few more minutes. You want to keep cooking until you’re slightly worried about burning, but not convinced that it is in fact burning. The bread may be sort of pale looking. Remove lid and bake for another 10 minutes, or until nicely caramel brown- more/less depending on how much burning you smell. If you smell even a hint of burning, check the bottom of the bread, if it’s too dark, but the top is not dark enough, turn over loaf in dish, so bottom is up, turn oven off, leave in oven for another 10 mins. Take out of oven. Let cool on rack for at least 20 mins (that’s according to Joy of Cooking) and 1 hour is even better apparently, but it’s hard to wait that long. It should make nice crackling noises. Eat with butter- it makes the crust taste even sweeter and yummier.

I’ve started using whole wheat flour. So far I’ve tried ratios of 1:2, 2:1, 3:0 (whole wheat:white). The whole wheat flour adds some nice flavour to the bread. The 100% whole wheat loaf is a bit denser, but not brick-like, it’s more like a dense banana loaf texture, still very moist and soft inside. I think I prefer 1:2 (w/w:white).