I'm a jane-come-lately to the Jim Lahey no-knead bread recipe, but by George, I don't think I'll ever buy another loaf of bread again. I breezed right past the bakery stand at the Farmer's Market on Sunday, because I would SO much rather have this:
Considering our apartment is only 1,000 square feet, after a mere 12 minutes in the oven, I was SO distracted by the smell (which, in 1,000 square feet is basically inescapable) that I had to start writing about the bread.
Throw out the bread machine, step away from the KitchenAid. There is NO excuse not to make this bread. It has 4 ingredients. It takes 12 minutes of your time. You don't have to KNEAD!
I followed Deb's repost of the recipe here (which I would highly suggest, especially after reviewing the extensive comments, #29 of which had some GREAT suggestions to make this even easier.)
Mix 3 cups of flour, 1/3 tsp active dry yeast and 1.5 tsp salt.
Combine with 1 5/8 cups of water (heated to 110 degrees).
Cover with plastic wrap, and walk away.
Come back in 18 hours, flour dough and bowl thoroughly, and walk away again.
Come back in 2 hours and bake.
Wait in sheer agony for the next 45-60 minutes while your home smells better than you ever thought possible.
Cool bread on rack (or, burn fingertips and roof of mouth, your choice...)
Yes, clearly I've abridged a lot of important information - which is why you should follow the link above to the 'real' recipe.
But seriously - doesn't this sound like something you could easily do? Don't you want a piece of this:
Pardon me - the timer on my oven just beeped. I've got bread to eat, people.
* Admittedly, not necessarily the best title for a blog post...
I don't know if I could stand EIGHTEEN hours! That's a really really long time! Does it taste slightly like sourdough? The texture of it looks truly divine. I usually try to bake on Saturdays, so I might have to make this next Friday morning...
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Oh - I hope I'm not too late! Yes, slightly like sourdough, but not very strong. And the 18 hours goes by so fast. You just set the bowl on the counter and ignore it ;)
ReplyDeleteWe baked our first no-knead bread last week, and we are hooked! We just bought a cookbook (http://amzn.to/cHnHQk) with lots of variations we can't wait to try.
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