I made this!

[katallison]

This is the second loaf I've done using the no-knead recipe that's been making the rounds, and my god, it's a beauty. (*admires vastly*) My comments from my experience thus far:

--DO NOT skimp on the flour/cornmeal/whatever used on the bottom of the baking pan (my first loaf totally stuck to the bottom, which was very sad).

--I think the flavor is better if you use slightly more salt--say, around 2 tsp.

--Though the advice for this recipe is to use no more than 50% whole wheat flour, I used 100% the "white" whole wheat variety sold by King Arthur Flour, which in my experience is a great bread flour, and it worked just fine. You do, however, want to push the second half of the baking (with the lid off) from 15 to 25-30 minutes, or the crumb will be just slightly damp. I think it also benefits from a slightly longer initial rise (I gave it 24 hours).

--There is no real need to go out and drop $100+ on an enamelled cast iron pan to make this; I use an old Pyrex casserole. It just needs to be something that will withstand 450 degree heat and has a lid.

Comments

[debg.livejournal.com]

That is an aboslutely gorgeous boule. I think there may be some baking in my not too distant future...

[katallison.livejournal.com]

Honest to god, this is *dead simple* to make, and tastes so much better than the bread I used to labor mightily over. I mostly gave up bread baking when my hand/wrist arthritis got bad, but this just requires a brief stirring at the outset, and then a gentle folding-together before baking. I'd say give it a shot!

[debg.livejournal.com]

I'm going to, I think. Depending on how it works, I may try a nice dark version of it, as well.

[misspamela.livejournal.com]

I've been doing a lot of experimentation in my cooking lately, including making yeast breads.

Pudding from scratch? Glorious.

Tempeh Bourgignonne? Fantastic.

Bread of any kind? Utter disaster.

I don't know what the hell I'm doing wrong!

[katallison.livejournal.com]

Hmm. What goes wrong, exactly? (I mean, I'm not a major bread expert, but would be glad to try troubleshooting.)

I really would encourage you to give this recipe a try--it seems like it would be hard to screw up. This writer mentions a few problems she encountered but got straightened out. And honest to god, I love this recipe not just because it's so simple, but also it tastes so damn good. (*trying to restrain self from eating the whole damn loaf*)

[misspamela.livejournal.com]

After talking to basingstoke, it seems like my yeast was probably dead. And, according to thefourthvine, I'm not using enough flour.

I wish I'd seen this yesterday -- I mght have given it a shot to go with tonight's lasagna.

[vagabondage.livejournal.com]

OMG Kat that is BEAUTIFUL!!!!

congrats!

[katallison.livejournal.com]

Zen, you should try making it! My hand to god, it is SO EASY and SO GOOD!

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

I am mightily impressed! I can cook like the dickens, but I can't bake for shit.

Wow, it looks tasty.

[katallison.livejournal.com]

Really, honestly, this is as simple to make as a batter bread. You just mix up flour/salt/yeast/water in a bowl, let it sit for 18-24 hours, fold it in on itself gently a couple of times, let it sit a couple more hours, and bake the sucker. And it is *delicious* -- I'm trying to restrain myself from snarfing down the whole loaf in one sitting.

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

Oh, eat the whole loaf. It's good for you, right? (:

Your information tempts me, but I still fear my baking incompetence. Hmm...maybe in a couple of weeks, when heresluck is in town to mastermind the whole process...

[heresluck]

Oh, yes! Let's!

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

*g* You say that now, but remember I have no scale.

[ratcreature]

That looks delicious.

[katallison.livejournal.com]

And (at the risk of sounding like a commercial) it tastes as good as it looks!

[kitestringer.livejournal.com]

Just looking at that is making my mouth water! I'm going to need to try making it, I think. It's about time I stopped being so intimidated by yeast in baking. *g*

[katallison.livejournal.com]

Dude, totally--give it a shot! I used to do a *lot* of bread baking, and was pretty damn good at it, but I will freely admit that this loaf tastes better than almost any of the ones I used to slave over. And it so SO EASY.

[mecurtin.livejournal.com]

I've gotten back into bread-baking recently and this definitely looks worth a shot. Couple questions:

1. Does the casserole need to have a really tight lid?

2. KA White Whole Wheat is my *favorite*. I wish I could buy it other than by mail-order -- my local grocery now carries a couple types of KA, but not that one.

3. Could you take us a picture of a slice?

4. What kind of oven do you have? Mine can do convection, conventional, or a mix.

5. I'm used to measuring flour by weight, not volume. Did you weigh yours? How much did you use?

[rustler.livejournal.com]

must butt in to let you know you can get all of King Arthur's flours online:

http://www.kingarthurflour.com/shop/landing.jsp?go=Home

[mecurtin.livejournal.com]

Oh I know -- I have an account there and everything -- but it doesn't work when I want it *today* because I've run out, or I want to impulse bake, or whatever.

[katallison.livejournal.com]

1. I don't know that a really tight lid is necessary; I think the purpose is just to keep most of the moisture in, to improve the crust (analogous to water-spritzing the loaf as it bakes, I suppose). There's an entry here from someone who just baked her loaf on a stone, without any vessel or lid at all. I also saw someone somewhere who used aluminum foil stretched over the top.

2. My sympathies re: lack of flour availability; I found it at Whole Foods, but prior to that used a good light whole wheat at the local co-op.

3. My camera batteries are recharging just now, but I'll see if I can get and post a photo later. The interior texture is very nice; a fairly tight, well-textured crumb. I gather when it's made with white flour it has a more open porous texture, but I haven't tried making that yet. (There's one shown at the site I linked in #1 above, and mine is a little less porous than that.)

4. Oven -- just a regular gas oven, with fairly poor temperature control.

5. This page translates the quantities into weight rather than volume. I will say that my measuring is not all that exact; this bread seems to be pretty tolerant, as long as you aim for a goal of a loose, very elastic and pliable dough, more like a batter, and don't mix in so much flour as to make it more like a conventional kneaded dough.

Good luck! It really is delicious bread; the long slow rise gives lots of flavor development, and I've seen comments by some people who keep a knob of dough from one batch and add it to the next to create more of a sourdough quality.

[mecurtin.livejournal.com]

grarr. I've been moving a thermometer all over the house, and I can't find a spot that's about 70 degrees. Most of the house is at 65 (or less), and the furnace room where I usually put bread to rise is about 75 (or more). There's no place I could make it during high summer, because we don't have AC.

hmm. There's one room that *might* do, but I have to figure out how to keep the mice out of the rising dough.

What temp did you rise yours at?

[panisdead.livejournal.com]

I love King Arthur flour! I switched on a whim, and I'm never going back to store brand.

[katallison.livejournal.com]

I've been lucky in that for many years now I've been able to get really good whole-wheat and white flour at the food co-op two blocks away, but the K.A. white whole wheat is exceptional, and I'm very glad the nearby Whole Foods carries it.

[rustler.livejournal.com]

Kat, that is one seriously gorgeous looking loaf of bread. I've been on a bit of a bread baking kick myself lately. In fact, I just ordered King Arthur's artisan bread nut/seed mix the other day. *g*

[katallison.livejournal.com]

Oh, cool! I'll have to look and see if they have that at the store hereabouts.

(And I have to say, the loaf tastes even better than it looks. And it is now more than half gone. Yum.)

[the-shoshanna.livejournal.com]

My god, that looks so good. You're making me hungry!

[katallison.livejournal.com]

It *is* so good. And so EASY! (Plus, bonus, having the oven up to 450 for an hour really heats the house up nicely on these snowy afternoons.)

[heresluck]

Okay, that is GORGEOUS. I know what recipe I'm trying out later this week.

In the meantime, I have pizza dough rising. Mmm, pizza.

I am all agog

[kormantic.livejournal.com]

and look on in breadlust.

You're so damned groovy.

[giglet.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's a good looking boule! Go you!

quick! help!

[mecurtin.livejournal.com]

I've been following the chocolate-zucchini recipe, I'm proofing now, and I realized -- I don't know how to get the dough from the bowl into the hot casserole!! Should I just invert the bowl over the hot dish and hope it falls out nicely?!?

eep.

VICTORY!!

[mecurtin.livejournal.com]

Bread is out of oven & cooled enough to eat and it's FABULOUSERINO!!!!!1! As far as I'm concerned, you win the entire internets. Hell, I could make this every day it's so easy-peasy. I've never made a homemade boule with such a perfect, perfect crust, and NO KNEADING!!

Sorry about the caps etc, but this is just -- MUCH BETTER THAN SLICED BREAD!!