Thursday, July 2nd, 2009
Fresh Delicious Bread
Ok, so I'm a freak for bread. I mean, who isn't? My mom was in town the other day and we were watching the Cooks Illustrated show on PBS, America's Test Kitchen, and they were showing us how to make Almost No-Knead Bread. We both get the magazine and if you know much about them, they are sort of the geeks of the food world. They just don't make recipes, they experiment with several options and explain chemical processes. We learned how gluten (the yummy, chewy texture in bread) is formed by kneading dough. However, it can also form from sitting with liquid for a long time. This bread sat for 14 hours before I did a quick knead, let it rise for 2 more hours and baked it in an already piping hot dutch oven which gives the outside that awesome crust. Enough of the babble, I'm going to post some pictures of my beautiful creation. Mind you, this is the first time I've ever baked bread. And it won't be my last! I wish I could blog how delicious it smells! Now I just have to wait 2 hours to dive into it.

I'm posting the recipe below and hopefully not breaking any copyright laws here. But seriously, you must try this.


Almost no-knead bread

3 cups (15 oz) all purpose flour --the key is measuring the oz. not cups
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp yeast
combine

7 oz water
3 oz beer (bud/lager)
combine

mix wet into dry (don't knead, will be lumpy)
cover in plastic wrap and let it sit 8-18 hours at room temp

knead 15x into the bread shape
put on parchment in a skillet
spray with veg oil, cover in plastic, and let it rise for 2 hours

Put a covered dutch oven in a 500 degree oven on the lowest rack
Slit the top 1/2" deep in the dough ball
Put bread (and parchment) in dutch oven. Cover.

Put in oven and reduce temp to 425 degrees
Leave the lid on for 30 minutes, remove, and take the lid off for 20-30 min. more.

The temp should be 210 degrees in the center

Remove and let cool for 2 hours.