Monday, February 2, 2009

You've got to try this.

This is so good! It's just like the artisan breads you can by at Whole Foods or other snooty bakeries. It has the taste and texture of a baguette.
It's actually a no-knead bread by Jim Lahey of the Sullivan Street bakery, recipe posted a few years ago by the New York Times. It is EASY. Click on the title below for the full article.The only special "equipment" you need is a cast iron dutch oven. Ours is a Lodge dutch oven with loop handles and was only $20-30.

3 cups 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.

(***My notes: The bread only needed 8-10 minutes with the lid off at the end of the baking. Also, I found I needed to add just a bit more water when mixing the ingredients to make it a 'wet' dough. )

H and A were extremely excited about being official taste testers. Hayden said he could eat this bread all day long.

3 comments:

lil' mama said...

I'll give this a try, but first I need the dutch oven. I've always wanted one - maybe for Valentine's Day:)

Vivi said...

I'm with lil' mama! This gives me the perfect excuse to finally go get the dutch oven...the bread looks AMAZING. I wish the screen was scratch-n-sniff.

Will try the beet cupcakes too...give the ol' dirt veggie a chance to redeem itself.

Unknown said...

Hey! I remember seeing that article in the NYT. It was on their Top 10 most popular e-mail list forever. Thanks for the reminder - I'll have to try it out. I was going to start a bread baking hobby this fall but it was way too much work so this might be just what I need! Ginger