I am so woefully behind the food trends (for instance, I have just now gotten a santoku knife) and only this weekend got around to the No Knead bread that I clipped a while back and that everyone else has already tried.
I have baked plenty of bread, including schmancy versions that involved resting in bannetons and/or crazy oven prep maneuvers with bricks and spray bottles and even once attempted to make my own sourdough starter from scratch, and then I moved around the corner from the La Brea bakery and said to hell with all that.
The no knead bread, though, may be even easier than walking around the corner and is quite nearly as good. (If it also sliced itself, I'd never darken the door of the La Brea bakery again except for maybe a twice baked sour cherry brioche. Okay, definitely for the twice baked sour cherry brioche.) I am still hung up on how amazingly easy it was- if you have not baked a lot before, you may not appreciate this ease as much, but truly, it is making muffin level of effort with four day growing your own starter and eight different rises level of quality product.
We have been eating the bread cut in hunks and dipped in olive oil or whatever sauce is on our dinner plates; toasted with butter and jam; sliced and used for sandwiches. I'll be experimenting with different flours and whatnot, but I think we'll be eating a LOT of this bread in the future.
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
Posted by Hannah at 11:19 AM
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4 comments:
Even using only 1.5 cups water, this bread is still coming out too moist for me. It's so frustrating, because the crust is just amazing, but I can't get the middle right. It does at least make good toast still.
What kind of flour are you using? I just used AP King Arthur, which is pretty high gluten/hard for AP flour, and it had a very nice chew on the inside. But I am thinking regular AP flour, like Gold Medal, would have been too soft. (And I cannot imagine the humidity between our kitchens is that much different- we wound up moving right down the street from you!)
The first time I used 2 cups King Arthur AP and one cup organic whole wheat, but used the higher amount of water, which I'm sure was responsible for the moistness. The second time I used half King Arthur AP and half King Arthur white whole wheat, and it was better, but still a little damp. I'm going to start an all-AP batch tonight and see how it goes.
Welcome to the neighborhood! If you ever see a girl with clashing pajama pants and Crocs walking a Pomeranian, say hello. :)
Maybe it is the whole wheat flour, then? My amateur baking sleuthery runs out after that guess.
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