I saw this today and just had to share it: it looks absolutely delicious and the story of making it is very cute too:
http://steamykitchen.com/168-no-knead-bread-revisited.html (http://steamykitchen.com/168-no-knead-bread-revisited.html)
For me who is not the best bread baker, I want to try this! Now! (Except I am at work :(
Maybe it's the goodnight kiss that makes it so yummy.
(A friend makes French Brioche with a recipe that involves making it the day before and then letting it rest until the next day. And it's one of the best I have ever eaten.)
Doesn't it just make you want to bake it! My computer is upstairs and I normally go on last thing as I am a very bad sleeper, I had already donned jimmies and alarmed the house, have now dis-alarmed, made bread dough and left it sitting on the yorkshire range which has the remains of heat from the days fire, and hubby has slept through it all! Hope he doesn't think it's something nasty and bin it before I get down in the morning, he's usually up for 5 am just as I'm going to sleep! The story about the little boy helping is lovely as well, brought a lump to my throat, as I am loving teaching my 8 year old grand-daughter to bake at the moment. Guess what she'll be making when she stays at the week-end!
Sounds super, although I'm not convinced about the floured cloth :o
Thanks for posting antipodes, some lovely recipes :)
;D I am going to make it tonight with my 10 year old! Obviously the kiss on the dough is vital to its correct rising...
It looked like the most wonderful loaf of bread I have ever seen! I am a bit of a hopeless bread maker (tend to stick some in the machine now and then and it's not bad but nothing like that!) and that would be great if it works.
Anisemary you are definitely keener than me! Let us know how it turns out.
She has some great recipes on that blog, made my mouth water!
mmmm...I'm going to try that.. ;D
Not keener Antipodes, just an acute insomniac! However, the results were very disappointing, in fact, inedible. I have been baking bread since the bread strike in the mid- 60's, and even though I was a young newlywed at the time, I never had bread as bad as this, or since, and I can't figure out why! Followed the recipe to the letter, but everything that could go wrong did. There was no way I could gather up and fold the dough when it had proved, it was much too liquid, so I scraped it to the edge of the floured board and plopped it into a basin lined with the floured tea towel as instructed, covered it with the rest of the towel and left it for two hours. When I tried to transfer it to the prepared cooking pot it was very wobbly in the middle and had stuck in several places to the towel - what a mess! Undaunted, I scraped as much as I could off the towel into the pot and baked. It had obviously lost all the air in the scraping off, as when finished it was almost flat, grey and stodgy when cut into (well, you did ask! ;) I am now going to have another look on the site to see if I missed anything vital, almost wished hubby HAD binned it before I came down this morning! Ah well, back to the drawing board.
That sounds like the it could be the difference in the flours and maybe too warm tempererature for slow rise for the yeast. Perhars the flour you use needs to be used slightly more than in recipe.
I'm going to have a go myself this weekend..our house is always on cool side and usually 'slow rise' recipes do well.
I might even try doing another loaf with sourdough starter so I have one with 'ordinary' yeast and one with 'wild' yeast..little experiment and just for fun.
How fascinating, Anisemary, to hear of someone else starting to make bread as a result of the bakers' strike - just as I did, also newly married! But the bakers' strike in London that got me started must have been in 1976, I think, the year after we got married. I'd never made it before, and it was a success that first time. So I've never looked back, and have virtually never bought another loaf, despite both children and husband taking sandwiches all their school/working lives! I was making four large wholemeal loaves every 5 days or so for years and years. Must have saved quite a lot of money, especially as I always cut everyone's hair too!
I do occasionally use the no-knead method. I bought the wonderful book The Handmade Loaf, by Dan Leary, two or three years ago and it inspired me to try that method and also to use a sourdough starter some of the time. The no-knead method really does work, although yes it is a much wetter mixture. I never wrap it in a cloth though - that is a sure-fire recipe for disaster!
I've made this 2 days in a row now and although it is indeed light and fluffy it doesn't actually rise that much at all. I make the dough up in the afternoon and then cover it and put it in the cupboard until the next morning were I turn it out into a pregreased loaf tin and then leave it for 2 hours before putting it in the oven on gas mark 8, tried the floured teatowel method and it stuck like s**t to a blanket. Trouble is as I said it doesn't rise that much. I am thinking today I shall double the ingredients and add a whole 7g sachet of dried yeast to it.
???
Julie
One thing that leaps to mind (as well as "Get a cheap bread machine!") is that you're going to need staggeringly good bread flour for this.... it'll need the protein content from hell for starters so I'd not bother with british flour and head straight for Canadian .... doubt you'll find Harvest King over here, American wheat frequently has a lot of GM in it I believe and is effectively banned in the EU... Would love to be proven wrong on that front though.....
Thanks for all your hints and tips, took heed of them all and have cracked it now! ;) Skimpy with the water, generous with the yeast, dispensed with the towel as suggested and tipped the mix off the board into a deep 7" cake tin, lined with the same size greaseproof cake tin liner, back in the plastic bowl I had used to prove it, covered with towel for a couple of hours. Then the liner and tin all went into the preheated casserole with lid on, removed after 30 mins. Crisp, tasty loaf to accompany home made tomato soup with the last red ones of the crop. I was tempted to put the cake tin straight into the oven without using the casserole dish, but I suppose there is a reason for cooking it inside another pot? Anyway, it rose even further during cooking and was delicious, so with help and a little determination I got there in the end! Funny, I seem to remember my Mother on a few occasions when I was a young teenager describing me to other family members as a 'plodder', although I have sometimes wondered if I mis-heard and the word was 'plonker'! No, after this I'm happy to settle for plodder :)
Anisemary! What perseverance!
OK I made it too, and I left it on the counter overnight, it's pretty warm in our place. But it rose by next morning and was still in the same state when I moved it that evening.
I tried the floured teatowel - ok you have to really dump a lot of flour on it! Then it works! But seems wasteful! I like the baking paper idea...
I had trouble with the folding, but I was reticent to touch it! :-\ However obviously that is a key thing.
I baked it is an earthenware salad bowl, a deep one like they use here in France to cook Tripes de Caen in! It was so hot, I sat it on a folded teatowel and it started smoking!!!! Dumped it into the bowl and in the oven, and I chucked some water on the bottom of the oven twice!
It was really nice! My brother called it doughy but he eats sliced white (humph). It had excellent aeration in it and the salt level was just right! I think it is a bread that improves with practice! You are all right though it doesn't rise a lot, maybe it would in a different cooking implement??? I liked it because there was none of the messy dough kneading which I cannot get right! and a much better crust than in the bread machine ;)
And yes I did kiss it goodnight!!!
I'm lazy and now after nearly 50 years of baking all my own bread now just tip half a pkt of Lidls german Breadmaking mix [with rye flour in it] into a 3lb bag of wholemeal,salt, some oil if I'm feeling flush ,cool water and mix. [I can do dried yeast but this has a good tang]
Leave all night in a plastic bowl with tight lid.
Kneed as much as my arthritic hands can manage,
Cut into 3or4
Put into oiled tins .
Cover with teflon sheets until well risen
Bake at 180/200 fan. for about 1 hr.
I put dish of hotwater in bottom for steam.
Sorry no fuss just basic practical job but my daughter puts all sorts in hers: olives, dried tomatoes, parmisan cheese etc etc ;D
When I want to be special I make doughnuts... ;D ;D