Crusty Bread - No knead

Easiest bread you will ever make and totally great for a first timer!

3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting (or half WW and half bread flour, I have also used 100% whole wheat and it worked out nicely!)
1/2 teaspoon instant yeast
1 1/2 cups water
1¼ teaspoons salt
Cornmeal or wheat bran (optional)

Directions

1. In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 1/2 cups 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. (I skipped the towel and did this in the bowel as it was much easier to transfer to the pot after with no sticking.) 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. (I used a 4 quart as the 6-8 was way too big and I wanted a tall bread not low and flat. I also didn't preheat the pot because it's too tedious to get the dough into the hot pot.) 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 O.K. 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. Yield: One 1½-pound loaf.

Easy right? Granted it takes a bit of forethought and planning but the results are well worth the wait. We love this bread sliced thick with a bit of butter and liquid honey. It’s also great dipped in olive oil and balsamic vinegar as a pre-dinner treat…mmmmm.

Back to the Wet Bread - No Knead Dough Extravaganza

No Knead French Bread
From Artisian Bread in 5 Minutes a Day

3 cups of lukewarm water
1 1/2 tablespoons active dry yeast
1 1/2 tablespoons coarse salt

6 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

Grab a very large mixing bowl, or a large container that you can cover. In it, mix the water, yeast, and salt. You don’t have to heat up the water to a precise optimal temperature for the yeast. I’ve even used just regular tap water, and it’s worked well for me. Just let that sit together for a while (you don’t have to wait for the yeast to dissolve completely), then dump the flour all at once and stir with a wooden spoon. You don’t need to knead this, and you’re not looking to make it come together into a dough ball. You just want everything mixed well, it will be very wet a gloopy. I used a 1.3 gallon Tupperware and partially attach the lid. You barely have any cleanup because this will be the container the dough will live in while in your fridge until you finish it.

Leave it in your container, covered (but not airtight, or it’ll pop), for a few hours. When it has risen and then deflated a bit, your dough is done. It’s ready to be used or stored in the refrigerator. I keep mine in the cupboard where the under cabinet lights keep it about 80 degrees. In less than 2 hours it tops my container so I poke it a little and pop it into the fridge.

To bake the bread, dust lots of flour on the dough and just grab a chunk of dough, about the size of a grapefruit with scissors or a knife. With your dusted hands gently pull the sides of the dough toward the bottom, rotating the dough a quarter turn each time, until you get a roundish shape with a smooth surface. It should only take you about a minute or less to do this. Don't worry about the funky looking bottom.

Put it on a cutting board that’s been dusted with cornmeal and flour to prevent sticking, and let it rest for at least 40 minutes. No need to cover it. If the dough has been refrigerated, it helps to let it rest a little more, until it’s no longer chilled.

Twenty minutes before you are ready to bake, put a cast iron skillet (or a pizza stone) in the middle rack of your oven, and put a broiler pan (I used a cookie sheet) in the bottom rack. Preheat your oven to 450 degrees. Dust some flour on the top of your loaf, and slash the top, about 1/4-inch deep.

After twenty minutes of preheating, it’s time to bake. (You can put the bread in after 20 minutes, even if your oven hasn’t reached 450 degrees yet.) Slide the loaf onto the baking stone, and then quickly pour 1 cup of hot tap water into the broiler pan. Then quickly shut the oven door to keep the steam inside.
Bake for 30 to 40 minutes, until you get a nice brown crust. Remove and let cool completely. Sometimes for a softer crust I wrap the bread in plastic wrap after it comes out to hold the moisture. This is perfect when wanting to use it for soup bowls or sliced sandwich bread too.

PIZZA PIZZA
My newest trial was stretching it out to a flattish personal sized pizza dough shape and just before putting it in the oven topping it with pesto, cheese, artichoke hearts, feta and sun dried tomato's! yummiest pizza I have had in a while.

march breads

I know I mentioned this before but finding the time to blog about my baking is very difficult for me. This month I will just be posting everything I baked and a few I forgot to take pics of for the blog. I baked a little less this month over last month but still had a wonderful array of yummie yeasties and I even ventured into trying some wet breads and sourdough.

Here I made some Garlic Naan! It came out wonderful! So much so that I actually made it twice. The first week in March and the second week to go with a yummy vegetarian red curry.

I don't have a pizza stone so I put my cast iron flat iron in the oven and it came out brilliant! Here is the naan cooking away in the oven.


And here is the final product.

After reading the March round up from BYOB I was totally inspired to make the chocolate brioche that Roxanna made from Green Girl. I stayed traditional in shape but liked the idea of using Nutella inside instead of the chocolate chips and boy did this taste good. But bottom line - it was just like my chocolate challah bread. I need to do a little more reading about what makes Brioche a Brioche instead of just calling it an egg bread! I think I ate most of it!




So I picked up Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day and tried out the recipe for the fluffy sandwich bread on page 92. It was much better than the 10 grain cereal one tried in January but still wasn't not sold on it as a regular staple in my house. It was still really dense and the strong yeast smell made my husband not want to eat it. So it lasted a long time. But it was super delish toasted with butter and thinly sliced extra sharp cheddar cheese. My personal favorite is Tillamock's Vintage White Cheddar - extra sharp. I pick up the 2lb block every time I go to Costco as this is truly my favorite cheese. The hamburger buns were from the same batch of dough and they came out pretty good too but still hubby didn't like the smell.

As you can see it came out with quite a nice texture and was soft but not as soft as my favorite whole wheat bread that I keep making. You can see a few pics below or click here for the recipe.

Here is my next round of Bagels that really did not fair that well! I'm not sure what I am doing wrong but they come out so FLAT and this time they were all gooey in the middle where the water seeped in while boiling and didn't seem to cook off. I feel like my dough is too dry so as I shape the balls the top dough tears leaving places for the water to sneak in. I'd love some help here if anyone knows what to do or how to help me. I will be trying it again this week and will try to keep my dough a little more hydrated and hopefully more pliable. I need the gluten to do it's job so maybe I should knead it longer too. hmmm.....

Here I cut the yucky part out of the middle so that I could eat it. Ew! Didn't taste bad though. LOL!

Of course another round of chocolate chip banana bread. And muffins too but they didn't have any chocolate. That way I can send it for snack to school with Mr. H.

Round 5 of favorite whole wheat oat bread. Here's the recipe. I really feel like it just gets better every time.

So I ventured into the realm of sourdough bread. I think this one needs it's own post which will come later but bottom line is it came out more like a french loaf because my sourdough starter was bad. Still tastes good though, hehe.

Sliced up nice too! I made it because I really wanted to have pannini's for dinner. I served this sandwiches with a really delicious broccoli cheddar soup (I adjusted it to be vegetarian). Here is the link for that recipe because it was amazing. I highly recommend doubling the recipe to serve 8 so that you have enough leftovers.


What I didn't get a chance to take pictures of were my beautiful Calzones! They were so pretty with the rolled twisted edges and the filling was to die for, adults got mediterraian style and the kiddo's got pizza pocket style. Yum yum. I baked them in the oven just like I did the naan above. I put my cast iron flat iron in the oven and baked it on one side only. Super duper great.

Lemon Poppyseed Muffins - small batch so they went super quick. Only two left and a picture with two muffins only is a sad picture.

Also put together a pan full of my no-bake eggless granola bars. Super quick and easy, here is the recipe:
1 cup chopped pecans
1 cup chopped cashews
1 cup coconut flakes - dry unsweetened - I love this so sometimes I add extra, yum yum!
1 cup oats
1 cup puffed rice cereal
1 cup kamut puffed cereal
1/4 cup flax meal
Put all in a 9x11 pan and toast @ 350 degrees in the oven for 12 minutes, stirring every 4 minutes so they don't burn. While that is toasting heat 3/4 cup honey and 7 Tbsp coconut oil on the stove till warm and mixed. Combine the honey and dry toast ingredients and then press into the 9x11 pan. Let cool. Place in the fridge to get extra hard. Pull out, flip over onto a cutting board and make your granola bars! Too much honey and they are too gooey and fall apart when not super cold from the fridge. Still really good but almost too sweet when there is too much honey. I wrap each individually and keep in the fridge for quick snack access. You can press chocolate chips into the top after pressing into the pan for chocolate coconut granola bars. My favorite!