Making bread the easy way

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

I’m probably the only person left on the planet who has not tried the No Knead Bread recipe that appeared in the New York Times in November of 2006.  Even though I had read hundreds of blog entries about how the recipe works and how the bread is really good, I didn’t quite believe it.  I scoffed at the idea of good bread without kneading.  And I admit it - I’m suspicious of short cuts.

But my husband got it in his head that he wanted to try the bread recipe recently.  He researched the best vessel in which to cook the bread [some cast iron pot available at Target, apparently] and went out and bought yeast.  And then everything sat around for two weeks.  I secretly think that he had no intention of mixing the bread - he wanted me to do it and thought that if all the stuff was sitting right in front of me, I’d break down and bake it myself.  As a testament to how well my husband knows me, I did that very thing yesterday.

And, as luck would have it, I had local flour in the house.  Daisy Flour only has pastry flour [whole wheat and regular white, plus spelt].  Typically, you wouldn’t use pastry flour for bread - pastry flour is made from low protein wheat and has very little gluten, which generally does not make for a good, chewy bread.  But hey, that’s what I had on hand and I used it.  As it turns out, it didn’t make a difference: the bread is fantastic - chewy with a good crisp crust!

For my first go, I didn’t go too crazy - I replaced half of the flour with whole wheat flour.  That’s it.  But there are a gazillion variations on this bread - from the type of flour to multi-grain to various add-ins.  I have yet to see someone have a disaster with the recipe, no matter what they did.  Later today I plan to mix up a batch with oats and sunflower seeds.  And I’m looking forward to the garlic harvest this year, so I can make roasted garlic and rosemary loaves.