No-Knead Bread

[Anneke]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/08/dining/081mrex.html

I thought it was time to give Jim Lahey's(Sullivan Street Bakery) revolutionary no-knead bread recipe a go.

The recipe has taken the foodie world by storm, and has prompted a new wave of bourgeois crime: stealing knobs off of Le Creuset lids. The bread is baked in a dutch oven or Creuset at high temp - the knobs don't make it that high. An important piece of info missing from Lahey's recipe. Well, I had to give it a shot. I was pleasantly surprised. Nice crumb (see pic below), not enough flavour development, could use more salt. (I substituted 2 tsp salt for 1 1/4 tsp table salt) I never bake; I thought this looked pretty good for a non-baker, dontcha think?

Anyone else experimented with this?

[KyleW]

That looks really tasty! I tried this recipe a couple of months ago and it didn;t work for me. The proportions ive resulted in a way too wet "dough". maybe I'll have to give it another shot, based on your results.

[Anneke]

Kyle, the dough is supposed to be quite wet. I don't know if Calabrese dough is this wet but the result is similar. I actually screwed up abit: the recipe calls for 1/4 tsp of instant yeast. I was rummaging through my pantry and found some almost-expired fast-acting, and debated whether it was a good idea to use it or some traditional dry yeast. In my conundrum I forgot the proportions and dumped the entire packet in. Didn't seem to have had an adverse effect.

I also had to add a bit more water than the recipe called for. I'm finding that the AP no-bleach flour (5 Roses) I use seems to mess up most of my recipes, and I always have to add more liquid. I know this doesn't make any sense... Or does it?

[baknit]

The January-February 2008 issue of Cook's Illustrated had an article and recipe for No-Knead Bread 2.0. they replaced some of the water with a little white vinegar and lager and tweaked the times a bit. Their recipe makes a very good bread, with more flavor than the original.

But I think the beauty of the original is the small number of ingredients and the minimal amount of work to produce a very good bread.

I switch between them when I feel like baking some bread, picking the recipe depending on the amount of work I am prepared to do.

[OregonYeti]

Here's a video link someone posted here a while back:

YouTube - Making No-Knead Bread

[Anneke]

My newest attempt. Made this one this afternoon; replaced about 1/3 cup of flour with 1/2 c steel cut oatmeal. Used flour and old fashioned rolled oats on the otside. A touch more yeast and salt, a pinch of sugar.

Awesome! Love the flavour. Will be great toasted tomorrow...