suspisciously easy bread...

This really isn't turning into a baking blog, I swear. I haven't really baked that much in the past, so when I discover something new I get really gung-ho about it. Check my house in two weeks - you'll probably see a bunch of baking trays in the garbage out back. Hee...

Regardless, my friend Peter mentioned in the last post a certain article put out by the New York Times that describes a recipe for no-knead bread. Yes, it's from three years ago and yes, that means I've probably been living under a rock but I'm okay with that. I'm trying to find a bread recipe that I can streamline into daily life - bread that tastes great but doesn't require a heck of a lot of fuss (AND is healthy). I looked on the back of a store-bought loaf of whole-wheat and noticed over 12 ingredients on the label... frankly, that's too much. Can't a guy get a loaf of bread with just flour, water, and yeast?

Thankfully, that's just what the recipe is. AND it has another perk - no need to knead! I thought this was too good to be true so I had to investigate. The original recipe:

3 cups all-purpose or bread flour
¼ teaspoon instant yeast
1¼ teaspoons salt

To be honest, I thought that sounded kind of boring. So I used a mixture of half bread flour and half whole wheat flour to make things a bit more interesting.

Mix all the dry ingredients like so, then add 1 5/8ths cup of lukewarm water. Since I doubt anybody actually has a 5/8th measuring cup (including me) I just decided to add 1 1/2 cup. shhh, don't tell...

This is what you end up with - a soggy, disgusting mess. I mean, a 'shaggy dough'. I was concerned, but didn't give up faith. Cover and let this sit for about 12-18 hours.

When I peeled back the cover, the dough had somehow become more liquid (but had definately increased in volume). I flipped the entire thing out on a floured surface and then attempted to fold it over on itself a couple times to get the surface looking all pretty and dolled up for a night on the town. or the oven...

Stunning! You're supposed to let this thing rest for two more hours, but to be honest I only let it rest for one. A half an hour before this thing is done resting, crank up that oven to 450 degrees F and place a heavy covered pot (ceramic, pyrex, cast iron... just something that will do a decent job of keeping the moisture in) into the oven to let it warm up. After that's done, take the pot out (carefully!) and dump the dough into the pot. Cover, then let bake for 30 minutes. Take the lid off and bake for 15-20 more minutes and... you're done!

I was nervous it would stick, so i dusted the bottom with some cornmeal before I put the dough in but it probably would have been fine without.

The verdict- this bread was delicious. The mix of unorthodox flours that I used didn't seem to matter at all, and I ended up with a slightly nutty, chewy and crusty bread. More important was the fact that I felt good eating it - and that I had complete control of what went into this baby (figuratively, of course, i don't condone putting babies in the oven... unless you're a stoned babysitter).

I'm curious as to what this bread would be like with just all-purpose flour, so I started up another batch that's half all-purpose and half whole wheat (as well as doubling the recipe). Soon, we shall see!