I’ve altered the no-knead bread recipe again, mostly due to impatience. I’ve eliminated the second rise and I think it tastes better and looks better too, sometimes, than the original no-knead bread. The crust is now more crusty and crackly and it tastes more like the artisan bread in 5 minutes a day bread- I don’t have enough room in my fridge to keep the dough for the artisan-in-5 bread, and the container that I use for that is currently holding a chicken. Also, this modification tastes about the same as the artisan-in-five recipe, and it uses less yeast and takes up no space in the fridge, so I think it’s better. I’ve been making this for a couple weeks now.

I’ve stopped measuring. All quantities are approximate:

1.7 cups of flour

1/2 tsp salt

tiny bit of yeast

3/4 water – only use enough water so that all the flour is incorporated, and the mixture is slightly damp looking, but not wet and not dry

Let sit covered, but not airtight for about 12 hours

Start preheating oven to 450F with covered pot. Then scrape dough onto floured surface, fold twice, set seam-side down and then lightly dust with flour. Let the dough sit there until oven is preheated.

At temperature, slash bread top, pick up dough and put into pot.

Cover. Bake for ~25 minutes. Turn oven off. Let sit for about 5 minutes. Cool.

]]> http://pattyj.wordpress.com/2008/10/07/no-knead-bread-modified-again/feed/ 1 Patty dscn07661 dscn0768 dscn0769 dscn0773 http://pattyj.wordpress.com/2008/08/03/more-bread-inside-out/ http://pattyj.wordpress.com/2008/08/03/more-bread-inside-out/#comments Mon, 04 Aug 2008 03:25:42 +0000 Patty http://pattyj.wordpress.com/?p=887 ]]>

I cleaned up a bit today, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at my apartment. I consolidated my bookshelf storage boxes, so now only one of them contains random crap, as opposed to all four of them. I found a receipt that I will need soon, and I also put my CDs in order and found some old mix CDs that I made years ago, when I made mix CDs every few weeks. I found some awesome long lost songs that I forgot existed. The best find was “Inside Out” by Culture Beat. I listened to that on repeat on my run tonight. It’s a great running song. I don’t really like the parts where the guy talks, but other than that it’s great.

I’m trying out the basic recipe from “Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes A Day“. It’s been blogged about endlessly and I haven’t been too interested in trying it since I’m quite happy with the no-knead method, but I saw the book at the library, so I checked it out. I followed the recipe, except for using the proper size plastic container, so this happened in the fridge, while I wasn’t looking:

I wasn’t going to bake anything tonight, but I figured I better make room in the container, so I’m baking a loaf tonight. It’s supposed to sit out for 40 minutes before entering the oven:

It’s in the oven now. I’m using the No-Knead covered pot method for the baking. I don’t want to mess around with water trays to create steam.

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It’s done now, but I have to let it cool before I eat any. It looks pretty good, but it doesn’t smell as nice as the no-knead bread. This smells a bit too yeasty.

UPDATE: It tastes really good. I’m very pleased with the results and will make this again. I’m going see what happens when I reduce the amount of yeast.

Due to overwhelming lack of interest, PHC is reposting Part One: Watching Bread Cool, in wide release.

This video features no use of tripod, a video glitch, and a very nice uplifting song: Everlasting Love by Howard Jones.

Warning: Nothing of interest happens in the video. I’m serious.

Enjoy.

Adapted from Mark Bittman, NYTimes, who adapted it from Jim Lahey, Sullivan Street Bakery.

Update 2008-10-07: I modified this recipe again, so it takes less time and tastes better. Here.

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I like plain white crusty bread, with a light, not too thick, crust that breaks easily. I want the crust to be browned, darker than golden, but still light and flaky, not too chewy. I don’t like the crumb to be too moist. However, even if it’s not just the way I like it, I still eat it all, and it tastes fine. It’s just not what I had intended. The recipe below is about half of the original recipe. It produces one loaf that I usually consume within a 24-hour period. And it fits nicely into a square 1.5 L casserole dish.

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Ingredients: flour, yeast, salt, water

Equipment:

Vessel with lid that can be put in oven at 450F

Plastic container with lid

dry measuring cups

I don’t have a scale, so since everything is approximate, I use dry measuring cups for ‘measuring’ water. Don’t use too much yeast.

Step 1: Mix together flour (about 1.8 cups), salt (about 3/4 tsp),

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and just a bit of yeast, about 1/32 of a tsp, or something like below (note for scale: that’s a teaspoon):

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Add water (about 3/4 cup, more or less– just add enough to incorporate all the flour, you don’t want a wet mess, but it will still taste okay if you add too much water. I just prefer it to be a bit drier.)

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Scrape and push everything together with a spoon until there are no dry spots.

Add a bit of water, if necessary, just to incorporate all the flour.

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Step 2: Cover with lid. Let sit overnight.

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Step 3: Next day, about 12 hours later, look at dough. Should see some holes, but it’s not quite done yet. You could start the second rise now, but I think it tastes better if you wait a bit longer. Cover with lid and let sit for a few more hours until the top is more watery.

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A few hours later, it’s ready for folding:

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Step 4: Turn onto floured surface to fold

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Folding video: Fold over in thirds, press out the air, quarter turn and repeat, keeping the seam on the top, until you get a nice ball.

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It should look something like this:

Then put it back in the plastic container.

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Step 5: Cover and let it rise for a few hours, at least two, but up to six or so is okay. Four hours is nice.

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After 4 hours:

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I forgot to take a still overhead shot, so here’s a short video clip.

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Step 6: Bake

I meant to videotape the process of getting the dough into the the pot, but it was on still mode. At this point, preheat the oven, with your baking vessel and lid inside the oven, for about 30 minutes at 450F. Then dump the dough into the pot, cover and bake for about 22 minutes. Check out the colour of the bread to gauge how much longer it needs to bake. I usually turn the bread over so the bottom doesn’t burn and also to get a bit more colour on the top. If it’s almost done, I turn the oven off and let it sit in there, inverted, for 5-10 minutes. If it’s a bit pale, keep the oven on for another 5 minutes or so and then turn the oven off and leave it in there for a bit. Then let it cool for about an hour or so before eating with butter. Lots of butter.

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The crumb:

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Cut Loaf

I made a slightly drier dough, with more salt this time. Baked 15 mins with cover on, 15 mins with cover off.

The past week I’ve been experimenting with keeping a starter dough, it’s not bad, but a bit smelly and requires some work.

Quote of the day: “Difficult people are distributed evenly throughout society.”

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).

I’ve made two loaves of bread so far and it was very easy, and pretty tasty. I particularly enjoy the crusty bits, inside is shiny, and not that tasty, but still, it’s better than store-bought bread. I did take pictures, but they are on my cell phone camera, and I still don’t have a suitable USB cable. The bread is incredibly simple to make, I started another loaf last night, it should be ready to bake tonight.