little feet, big sky

I’ve been making a lot more no-knead bread lately and have cut the steps down to the following.

• 4 cups flour
• 1 tsp active dry yeast
• pinch of salt
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 2 cups warm water
• 2 tablespoons olive oil

Mix the flour, salt, yeast & sugar in a large bowl. Add the water & stir until you have a sticky/shaggy dough. Drizzle the oil on top and cover with a damp towel or plastic wrap. Leave in a warm place 16-20 hours. “Punch down” by gently gathering the sides in and turning it over a few times in the bowl, then cover again and leave to rise another 2 hours. Preheat oven to 450 deg with a 3- or 4-quart cast-iron dutch oven with lid inside for at least 30 minutes. (Our oven helps heat our house, so I do this while the bread rises a second time.) Carefully remove the hot dutch oven from the oven, remove the lid and quickly turn the dough into the pot, using a rubber spatula or dough scraper to scrape the dough from the bowl as needed. Cover the dutch oven and place in oven. Bake at 450 for 20-30 minutes, then remove the lid and bake for an additional 30 minutes. Remove from oven and let stand for 5 minutes, then turn bread out onto a cooling rack for 30 minutes.

I usually start the dough the night before just before I go to bed, or while making dinner and take it upstairs to camp out next to the spouse-unit’s computers, since it’s a pretty even warmth there. :-) If I start heating the oven and punch down the dough by 5pm the next day, we have a fresh loaf of bread in time for dinner. I’m experimenting with other flavors and add-ins. I tried substituting a cup of rye flour for 1 cup of white flour and the result was good, but quite denser. The spouse-unit enjoyed it, though, so I’ll be playing around more with that. Another idea I’m eager to try is some kind of garlic herb bread – would go great with winter soup.

Last night, I made some awesome no-knead bread. Inspired by Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, I noticed that many commenters were refering to the NYT no-knead bread recipe. I bookmarked it with the intention of trying it someday, until I spotted a similar recipe Sunday night in Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything. Since I would happily jump off a cliff if only Mark Bittman was showing me how, I mixed up a batch and gave it a whopping 28 hours at about 70 deg. Baking was easy-peasy. I followed Bittman’s (and Lahey’s) advice on baking inside a Dutch oven, something that other no-knead recipes were missing. The idea is that moisture in the form of steam is what creates that amazing crispy crust and spraying your loaves or putting a tray of water in the oven just doesn’t cut it. The Dutch oven traps in the steam from the super-moist dough and the results are amazing.