Bread (no-knead)

Bread

Bread! I finally had time to give baking bread another shot. I tried it a few months ago and it turned out OK, but something just wasn’t right. I think I got the yeast a little wrong. So I had to try it again. And since I have no room to actually work with dough, it had to be the no-knead kind of bread. And after searching on all sorts of blogs for a recipe, I found a great explanation on Steamy Kitchen. This is the recipe I managed to ruin. I hang my head in shame, since even her 4-year-old had no problems.
And with that, I decided to go to the source and ordered Jim Lehay’s book “My Bread: The Revolutionary No-Work, No-Knead Method“. I got it a few weeks ago and have been looking forward to making the bread. And it worked! Ha! I strongly recommend this book. The illustrations, explanations, and narrative are great. Gives you a really clear, step-by-step approach to making bread.

Ingredients:
3 cups bread flour (in my previous attempt, I used all-purpose)
1 1/4 teaspoons salt (I used kosher salt)
1/4 teaspoon active dry yeast
1 1/3 cups water (I used room temp)

Steps:
1. In a large bowl, add all ingredients and mix together. The dough will be very sticky and will look kinda dry. I used a wooden spoon and my hands.
2. Once mixed, cover (I used plastic wrap) and let stand for about 12-18 hours.
3. After the dough rests 12-18 hours, take the dough out of the bowl and place it on a floured surface and shape into a ball by “tucking” the ends under.
4. Once “ends” are tucked in and the dough looks relatively like a ball, put it into a well-floured kitchen towel (not a terry-cloth one but one that won’t leave lint) and let it rest another 1-2 hours.
5. With about 30 minutes left of the second rise, preheat the oven to 475 and place a dutch oven in it (or another pot with a lid you’ll use to bake the bread). After the 30 minutes, VERY CAREFULLY place the dough into the pot and close the lid.

Look at this crust!

6. Bake the bread for about 30 minutes with the lid on. After 30 minutes, bake for about 15-30 minutes with the lid off. This will let it brown nicely.

7. Faint from the lovely home-baked bread smell. Pick yourself up from the floor and enjoy the bread (after letting it cool for an hour or so first).
ENJOY!

Tasting bread

And I couldn’t resist trying it. I mean, just look at it! I don’t mean to brag, but it smelled soooo good. Why hasn’t anyone invented “smell-o-vision” I don’t know. I wish they did. So I made a sandwich: bread, butter, and strawberry jam. YUM!

Bread