knitxcore.: No Knead Bread!

Friday, January 11, 2008

No Knead Bread!

No Knead Bread

Since I finally have fancy dutch ovens, I took a stab at the no-knead bread everyone's been gabbing about. It's seriously the easiest recipe ever, it just takes some time for the bread to rise. I skipped the cornmeal step (don't do that), and that lovely loaf above was stuck to the pan in a bad way. Don't worry, we still ate it. It was just a bitch to get the lil' klingons off of the pan when cleaning time rolled around.

I read about it on the
NotMartha blog awhile ago, and found a ton of links with different recipes. Ultimately, I used the most popular one from the NYTimes:

Recipe: No-Knead Bread
Published: November 8, 2006

3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting
¼ teaspoon instant yeast
1¼ teaspoons salt
Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed.

1. In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 5/8 cups water, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.

2. Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.

3. Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.

4. At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.

Yield: One 1½-pound loaf.

Easypeasy, right??? The only thing I did differently was switch the all-purpose flour to whole wheat (well, that and the cornmeal thing). Honestly, if it hadn't stuck I would have felt like a master chef. I guess I could try again on Sunday?

In true KnitXcorE style, I have a NoKneadBread video:





thanx for all the well wishes BTW!!!! i'm feeling a lil' better today :-)
<3
knitxcore.

9 comments:

Obsessed with knitting said...

I "knead" bread! YUM!
I hadn't seen all of your FOs until tonight - you've got so many great items! YOU'RE the knitting machine :-)

Mel said...

That's why I got me a cast iron casserole and seasoned the hell out of it. Wonderfully, beautifully nonstick.

Charles said...

HEY Robbie~~
I am really happy your feeling better!Let me give your hug~

I never made bread befor(Just bake a cookie for myself) Seems like easy! I will try next time!

Charles

Matt....... said...

I am sooooooo making the dough at 8pm tonight, so I can eat fresh bread with breakfast! thanks robbie......

Deneen said...

Ya need the cornmeal-definitely. Also, try using some white flour mixed in (sub the whole wheat flour)-it makes it a bit lighter and less sticky.

Crafty Andy said...

you can do that in some places and a natural yeast will grow in it. San Francisco Is famous for its Sourdough bread which is a natural ocurrence in San Francisco, A sourdough starter is a stable symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast present in a mixture of flour and water. The yeasts Candida milleri or Saccharomyces exiguus usually populate sourdough cultures symbiotically with Lactobacillus sanfranciscensi.[1]. Lactobacillus sanfranciscensis (bacteria) was named for its discovery in San Francisco sourdough starters.

Unknown said...

I've got a blob rising at home right now!

Matt turned me on to it! I also have a new dutch oven to play with.

I used Rapid-Rise (I think it was done this morning) so we'll see how it comes out. I think it'll just be a little crunchier.

Anonymous said...

how did it turn out? a co-worker did a 100% whole wheat and it was pretty dense and didn't rise as much as my 1 cup ww / 2 cup all-purpose.

check out breadtopia.com for more variations. I love the steelcut oats no knead!

who made your pot? cute handle.

elizabeth marley said...

I'm so coming to your house and making you make me some bread.