last, but not yeast

​Lately I have been interested in bread baking. I like a crusty loaf with a light and slightly airy crumb structure. A few weeks ago, I viewed a video with Mark Bittman of The New York Times and Jim Lahey, of Sullivan Street Bakery, where Mr. Lahey demonstrated his no knead bread recipe. It looked very easy; so, I gave it a go. For his recipe you’ll need all-purpose flour or bread flour, instant yeast, kosher salt and cornmeal.
 
If you watch the video with Jim and Mark, you’ll notice that Jim starts with 3 cups of all-purpose flour and 1-1/4 teaspoon of salt. In the adapted version by Mark Bittman, his recipe uses 3-1/3 cups of flour and 2 teaspoons of salt, however, I followed the recipe from the video. In the video, after mixing the dough by hand, you’ll see some oil has been added to the bowl; I didn’t notice this part earlier. Jim Lahey baked his bread in LeCreuset Dutch Oven, I used a Lodge cast iron Dutch oven.

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Although I followed his recipe, my end result didn’t achieve the same crusty exterior. I don’t know if the surface of the Lodge cast iron played a part or I didn’t apply enough flour over the top of the bread during the second rise.
 
A few weeks have gone by since I made Jim Lahey’s recipe, that I felt confident enough to try again. However, this time I tried a recipe that my friend Lorraine shared with me. The recipe she follows is from the book “Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day.” Although it’s been years since I had a loaf she baked, I remember how wonderful it tasted. This is also a no-knead recipe except this one is baked on a baking stone and has a preheated pan on the bottom shelf to which you’ll add water for creating steam during baking.
 
What a difference in recipes! My husband and I loved this loaf of bread. The bread had a crusty exterior with a well-form crumb structure that didn’t fewer air pockets. I let the bread cool before cutting a slice for myself and slathering with butter. It was delicious, it had nice flavor and a nice crumb for buttering.
 
Although the full recipe makes four 1-pound loaves, I made half. However, the next time I’ll make a full recipe. The dough can be refrigerated for 14 days or frozen. Keeping it for 14 days will continue the maturation. The recipe also suggests that after emptying your bucket, don’t wash it, but make another batch in the same container. If there’s some dough stuck on the sides, leave it, it will give you a head start on sour dough flavor.

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The Master Recipe: Boule (Artisan Free-Form Loaf)
“Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking,” by Jeff Hertzberg M.D., Zoë François
 
Makes four 1-pound loaves. The recipe is easily doubled or halved.
3 cups lukewarm water
1 1/2 tablespoons granulated yeast (2 packets)
1 1/2 tablespoons kosher salt or other coarse salt
6 1/2 cups unsifted, unbleached, all-purpose white flour, measured with the scoop-and-sweep method
Cornmeal for pizza peel

1. Warm the water slightly: It should feel just a little warmer than body temperature, about 100 degrees F. Warm water will rise the dough to the right point for storage in about 2 hours. You can use cold tap water and get an identical final result; then the first rising will take 3 or even 4 hours. That won’t be too great a difference, as you will only be doing this once per stored batch.
2. Add yeast and salt to the water in a 5-quart bowl or, preferably, in a resealable, lidded (not airtight) plastic food container or food-grade bucket. Don’t worry about getting it all to dissolve.
3. Mix in the flour–kneading is unnecessary: Add all of the flour at once, measuring it in with dry-ingredient measuring cups, by gently scooping up flour, then sweeping the top level with a knife or spatula; don’t press down into the flour as you scoop or you’ll throw off the measurement by compressing. Mix with a wooden spoon, a high-capacity food processor (14 cups or larger) fitted with the dough attachment, or a heavy-duty stand mixer fitted with the dough hook until the mixture is uniform. If you’re hand-mixing and it becomes too difficult to incorporate all the flour with the spoon, you can reach into your mixing vessel with very wet hands and press the mixture together. Don’t knead. It isn’t necessary. You’re finished when everything is uniformly moist, without dry patches. This step is done in a matter of minutes, and will yield a dough that is wet and loose enough to conform to the shape of its container.
4. Allow to rise: Cover with a lid (not airtight) that fits well to the container you’re using. Do not use screw-topped bottles or Mason jars, which could explode from the trapped gases. Lidded plastic buckets designed for dough storage are readily available. Allow the mixture to rise at room temperature until it begins to collapse (or at least flattens on the top), approximately 2 hours, depending on the room’s temperature and the initial water temperature. Longer rising times, up to about 5 hours, will not harm the result. You can use a portion of the dough any time after this period. Fully refrigerated wet dough is less sticky and is easier to work with than dough at room temperature. So, the first time you try our method, it’s best to refrigerate the dough overnight (or at least 3 hours), before shaping a loaf.
5. On Baking Day: The gluten cloak: don’t knead, just “cloak” and shape a loaf in 30 to 60 seconds. First, prepare a pizza peel by sprinkling it liberally with cornmeal (or whatever your recipe calls for) to prevent your loaf from sticking to it when you slide it into the oven. Sprinkle the surface of your refrigerated dough with flour. Pull up and cut off a 1-pound (grapefruit-size) piece of dough, using a serrated knife. Hold the mass of dough in your hands and add a little more flour as needed so it won’t stick to your hands. Gently stretch the surface of the dough around to the bottom on all four sides, rotating the ball a quarter-turn as you go. Most of the dusting flour will fall off; it’s not intended to be incorporated into the dough. The bottom of the loaf may appear to be a collection of bunched ends, but it will flatten out and adhere during resting and baking. The correctly shaped final product will be smooth and cohesive. The entire process should take no more than 30 to 60 seconds
6. Rest the loaf and let it rise on a pizza peel: Place the shaped ball on the cornmeal-covered pizza peel. Allow the loaf to rest on the peel for about 40 minutes (it doesn’t need to be covered during the rest period). Depending on the age of the dough, you may not see much rise during this period; more rising will occur during baking (“oven spring”).
7. Twenty minutes before baking, preheat the oven to 450°F, with a baking stone placed on the middle rack. Place an empty broiler tray for holding water on any other shelf that won’t interfere with the rising bread.
8. Dust and slash: Unless otherwise indicated in a specific recipe, dust the top of the loaf liberally with flour, which will allow the slashing knife to pass without sticking. Slash a 1/4-inch-deep cross, “scallop,” or tic-tac-toe pattern into the top, using a serrated bread knife
9. Baking with steam: After a 20-minute preheat, you’re ready to bake, even though your oven thermometer won’t yet be up to full temperature. With a quick forward jerking motion of the wrist, slide the loaf off the pizza peel and onto the preheated baking stone. Quickly but carefully pour about 1 cup of hot water from the tap into the broiler tray and close the oven door to trap the steam. Bake for about 30 minutes, or until the crust is nicely browned and firm to the touch. Because you’ve used wet dough, there is little risk of drying out the interior, despite the dark crust. When you remove the loaf from the oven, it will audibly crackle, or “sing,” when initially exposed to room temperature air. Allow to cool completely, preferably on a wire cooling rack, for best flavor, texture, and slicing. The perfect crust may initially soften, but will firm up again when cooled.
10. Store the remaining dough in the refrigerator in your lidded (not airtight) container and use it over the next 14 days: You’ll find that even one day’s storage improves the flavor and texture of your bread. This maturation continues over the 14-day storage period. Refrigerate unused dough in a lidded storage container (again, not airtight). If you mixed your dough in this container, you’ve avoided some cleanup. Cut off and shape more loaves as you need them. We often have several types of dough storing in the refrigerator at once. The dough can also be frozen in 1-pound portions in an airtight container and defrosted overnight in the refrigerator prior to baking day.

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No-Knead Bread
Recipe from Jim Lahey
Adapted by Mark Bittman, The New York Times/Cooking
 
Time: 1 hour 30 minutes, plus about 20 hours resting time
 
“Here is one of the most popular recipes The Times has ever published, courtesy of Jim Lahey, owner of Sullivan Street Bakery. It requires no kneading. It uses no special ingredients, equipment or techniques. And it takes very little effort — only time. You will need 24 hours to create the bread, but much of this is unattended waiting, a slow fermentation of the dough that results in a perfect loaf. (We've updated the recipe to reflect changes Mark Bittman made to the recipe in 2006 after publishing and receiving reader feedback. The original recipe called for 3 cups flour; we've adjusted it to call for 3⅓ cups/430 grams flour.)”
 
Yield: One 1½-pound loaf
3⅓ cups/430 grams all-purpose or bread flour, plus more for dusting
Generous ¼ teaspoon/1-gram instant yeast
2 teaspoons/8 grams kosher salt
Cornmeal or wheat bran, as needed
 

1. In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1½ cups/345 grams water and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.
2. Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.
3. Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.
4. At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is OK. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.

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