When you get off the subway in Astoria late at night the aroma of freshly baked bread is overpowering. It is definitely one of the best things about living here and until now I have not tried replicating it in my own apartment. I have been reading a great book by another food blogger who challenges herself to eat in for two years. It’s called “The Art of EATING IN: How I Learned to Stop Spending and Love the Stove.” Early on in the book she learns of a new technique for making bread called “No-Knead Bread.” It was developed by Jim Lahey of New York’s Sullivan Street Bakery.
I’ve always found the concept of making your own bread quite daunting but this is something I had to try. Interestingly enough my husband had also learned of this method and when I mentioned it over dinner one night we decided to give it a try. We found a recipe online and were stunned to learn that the only ingredients were flour, salt, yeast, cornmeal and water.
First Loaf of Our Own Freshly Baked Bread
Recipe for “No-Knead Bread”: (Lahey’s Recipe as Reprinted from the NY Times)
Time: About 1½ hours plus 14 to 20 hours’ rising
3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting
¼ teaspoon instant yeast
1¼ teaspoons salt
Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed.
1. In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 5/8 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. 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 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.
The bread turned out amazing. We even improvised since we had weekend errands by refrigerating the dough about 5 hours after it had been left to rise for 18 hours. In total we left it to rise for about 24 hours and it was great regardless. This method is definitely so adaptable and great for people looking to make homemade bread without too much hands-on work. And your whole apartment will smell great too!
