Got the book over the weekend, made the master recipe Sunday night, and baked my first loaf last night to have with Butternut Squash soup. The bread is incredibly easy to make and absolutely delicious. Great flavor, chewy the inside, with a perfect crispy crust. I don’t think we’ll buy bread at the store ever again.
I’m really looking forward to making some of the other breads in the book. Has anyone made any of the other recipes? Just as easy to make good bread with the rye and whole grains? Any recipes I should get to sooner than later?
is this the name of a book ? a method? is it like the “no-knead” bread the NY Times championed a few years ago?
It’s the book Robert linked to.
I’ve used the basic recipes and the brioche recipe a lot. It’s easy to vary the basic recipe by adding other flours in. I just finished off some bread that was the basic recipe with some wheat and rye flour subbed in. They share a lot of techniques on their site and are quite good about answering questions.
For those not familiar with the technique, it’s basically no-knead bread. It’s a reaction to the contention that you need to let dough rise, punch it down, knead it and let it re-rise to get good texture. The basic recipe is quite easy. It is (from memory):
Take 1 part water at ~90F or so (not too hot or the yeast dies).
Take a bit over 2 parts bread flour.
Take 1 packet of yeast (presuming you’re using 4 to 6 cups of flour)
Take some salt (about a tablespoon, to taste)
In a large bowl, put the yeast and salt in then the water. Stir slightly. Plop the flour in, stir until everything is just combined. Cover and let rise in a warm, room temp area. When it’s risen (doubled or so), put it in a container that’s covered but will let gases escape. Put in the fridge.
To bake, grab the container of dough, pull off some dough and shape it, handling as little as possible. Slash dough. Leave the dough out to warm for ~ an hour. Preheat the oven to 450, bake for ~25 mins or so.
That’s it. It’s not really 5 mins from start to baking, but it really is only about 5 mins of work. The bread comes out incredibly well and the texture is fine. As with most things in the kitchen, knowing the mechanics helps - if the dough is too wet it won’t bake up with a loose enough texture and you’ll find it has a dense crumb.
The main advantage is that you can have dough in the fridge pretty much all the time and you’re 1-2 hours from a fresh loaf. It’s also nice because you can break off roll-sized chunks and bake up a small roll to go with dinner that night etc.
Warning - the brioche is VERY rich. Too rich for me, even though it’s supposed to be brioche.
I’ve had some really nice results with the Times’ /Sullivan Street bakery’s “no knead” bread over the years…it seemed to work fine with some whole wheat and rye, too…
sounds like the same thing…give it time and let the yeast do the “labor”.
Yeah, Stuart, it’s basically the same thing. The nice thing about this book and their second one is that they apply the technique to a lot of different baking tasks - hamburger buns, holiday breads, etc. - so it’s a nice reference to have. I do find that the flavor develops if you leave the bread in the fridge for a couple of days after the initial rise but that could be psychosomatic.
Speaking of which I need some more yeast…
