Me, Learn to bake bread?

I decided a while back to learn how to bake bread, for a couple of reasons the biggest being I am a cheap bastard and it seemed a stupid waste of money to be spending $5.00+ every time I wanted a halfway decent loaf of bread, that most of the time turned out to be mediocre from the local grocery.

Only once before in my life had I taken on the task of producing a loaf of bread (the results were WAY less than satisfying) more accurately it was pretty awful and I haven’t tried since, I needed it simple and with as little hassle as possible.

Right around the time period I had been pondering becoming a baker… lifehacker.com had a story on no-knead bread & well, right place, right time.

I played around with it at first trying the no-knead recipe that has been floating around for the last few years published by the NY Times. This is a video of the original recipe.

Before you run off to make that, below is a version from Americas Test Kitchen that I find to be much better, the dough is way easier to handle. They add in about 30 seconds of kneading along the way, it improves the rise & frankly 30 seconds, who cares… that is miles better than standing there kneading for 15 min. I like it with just a touch more salt than the recipe calls for, if you use kosher salt as I do normally, double the amount in the recipe.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour (10 oz), plus additional flour for dusting work space
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/4 teaspoon instant or rapid-rise yeast
• 1 1/2 teaspoons table salt
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 3/4 cup, plus 2 Tblsp water(7oz), @ room temperature
• 1/4 cup, plus 2 Tblsp mild-flavored lager(3oz), such as Budweiser (I use ginger ale instead)
• 1 Tablsp white vinegar

Directions:

Whisk flours, yeast, & salt in a large bowl. Stir the honey into the water, then add the water, beer, and vinegar to the dry ingredients. Using rubber spatula, fold mixture, scraping up dry flour from bottom of bowl until shaggy ball forms.

Cover bowl w/ plastic wrap & let sit @ room temperature 8 to 18 hrs.

Lay 12 by 18 inch sheet of parchment paper inside a 10-inch skillet and spray w/ nonstick cooking spray.

Transfer dough to lightly floured work surface and knead 10-15 times.

Shape dough into a ball by pulling edges into middle.

Transfer dough, seam side down, to parchment-lines skillet and spray surface of dough w/ nonstick cooking spray.

Cover w/ plastic wrap, sprayed w/ cooking spray, and let rise @ room temperature for 2 hours.

About 30 minutes before baking, adjust oven to lowest position, place a 6-8 qt. heavy-bottomed Dutch oven w/ lid on rack & heat oven to 500 degress.

Lightly flour top of dough, and using a razor blade or a sharp knife, make one 6-inch long and 1/2-inch deep slit along top of dough.

Remove pot from oven, remove lid, & place dough (by lifting parchment overhang), & lower into pot.(Let any excess parchment hang over pot edge).

Cover pot & place in oven.

Reduce temperature to 425 degrees & bake, covered, for 30 minutes.

Remove lid & continue to bake until loaf is deep brown & instant-read thermometer inserted into the center registers 210 degrees, 20-30 minutes longer.

Carefully remove bread from pot; transfer to wire rack & cool to room temperature, about 2 hours.

Makes 1 loaf, and is best eaten the day it is baked, but can be wrapped in aluminum foil and stored in a cool, dry place for up to 2 days.

This is a great way to get into baking your own bread without a lot of time suck, basically 10 min, and you have bread the next day…. I double or triple the recipe and toss the dough in the fridge, it will keep up to two weeks. Whenever I want bread I pull a chunk off leave it out to rise, pop it in the oven …yum!

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