Quick n Dirty: Low-Knead Bread Recipe

low-knead bread recipe

So about a month ago the trials started with the No-Knead Bread Recipe, both the abridged version and the full-length version.  After a few experiments resulting in some flatter, some crustier and others with just an okay crumb, the winner has been found.  Some off-time has been spent scouring other blogs and insights into easy, high-quality home breads.  The key this time was not in any crazy additives or changes, but perhaps just a re-sequencing of events that were already found in the original order.

One quick qualm was with this recipe’s recommendation for 1/4 oz of instant yeast.  What does that mean when you use spoons and volumetric mechanisms?  Most research, including the back of the jar state 2.25tsps active dry yeast for .25oz instant yeast.  In the idea that bread was wanted, and not a helium balloon, .33tsp ADY was used in the shoot-from-the-hip method.

Speedy no-knead bread (makes one large loaf)

Ingredients:

3 cups bread flour (or all-purpose)

1/4 oz instant yeast

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp natural, unrefined cane sugar (like sugar-in-the-raw)

1 1/2 cups really warm water

1 tablespoon olive oil

1/2 tsp balsamic vinegar

oil as needed while prepping for second rise

1.  Mix the water, yeast and sugar together and let sit until the concoction begins to foam.

2. Combine flour, salt, olive oil and balsamic  in a large bowl.  Add the foaming concoction and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy.  Cover bowl with plastic wrap.  Let dough rest about 4 hours at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.

3. Lightly oil a work surface and place dough on it; fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest at least 30 minutes more.

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 and oil lightly.  Slide your hand under dough and put it into pot, seam side up.  Or just dump the shaggy pile on in.  Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes.

5. 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.

The first rise went well so the dough was removed from the vessel, oiled and kneaded for a minute or two just to make sure the oil was in there and the ball would not stick to the bowl.  Wrapped up like a present and set it back by the heater (in a Maine winter, that is the only place to get things warm unless you have a wood stove).

About fifteen minutes later Castirona (the trusty cast-iron enamel pot) was put in the oven at 450F.  Just got out of shower and got dressed and pulled Castirona out of the oven.  A quick greasing with extra virgin olive oil on a paper-towel and the preparations are done.  Spatula ready in the right hand, the left hand tipped the bowl, with the 2nd risen dough mass, completely upside down and let gravity put in the transition energy.  The amalgam of ingredients stretched out of the plastic mixing bowl and separated slowly from the oiled inside.  The spatula is only needed for the last bit.  Giving the no-longer empty Castirona a shake to even out the jiggling ball of dough that is already reacting to the scalding pot.  Right back in the oven for 30 minutes.  Annndddd go!

A lackadaisical tendency led the bread’s first stead to be for about 35 or so minutes.  No biggie, this is not the critical burn phase.  The second stead ended up being over twenty minutes, probably should have been fifteen or less.  However, if you did not know this you would never have known.  The crust is crunchy and brown, the crumb is airy and absorbitant and there is some cracking on top.

Twenty minutes or more of resting are advised, then the use of a decent  breadknife.  Olive oil with pepper, balsamic vinegar and diced tomatoes, and thin slices of wicked fresh avocado along with a Tempranillo made this bread absolutely stellar (and a healthy appetizer to boot).

Quick n Dirty: A Hearty Breakfast

The benefits of a good breakfast are not news.  Even just a cursory glance at some of the web’s info hotspots on health and nutrition (WebMD, breakfastfirst.org, eatright.org, ivillage, etc) gives plenty of solid ammo against this modern misconception.  If anything, just pay attention to your body on the days you eat a good breakfast.  The most common effects are improved concentration, improved physical performance, and a greater feeling of satiety during the day.  If you are not a believer then try it tomorrow.

Protein, especially a lean form, is one of the best breakfast items for its real benefits: better mental acuity, memory and problem solving.  Enter the incredible, edible egg.  While still in school I made it a rule to eat an egg any day before an exam or when a new subject was being covered.  As an athlete it became status quo to have at least one egg and cheese sandwich before heading off climbing, hiking, skiing, surfing, etc.  Being able to perform at one’s optimal level, for the sake of performance and safety, is aided by this simple and satisfying step.

Skipping breakfast has been linked to greater body fat down the road.  Research shows that you are often left hungrier later in the day, and thus scrambling to fill the void.  The lack of concentration from a low glucose level alone is also no fun and, again, so easily remedied.  High sugar breakfast bars are never enough, they are like throwing gas on a fire.  A bowl of breakfast cereal, although a good option, still lacks the protein and nutrition an egg offers.  Pop tarts…forget about it.  I’ve been down and back on that road and it is as unproductive as that sweet sugary inside is lava-like after a minute of heating up.

Looking in the fridge this morning there wasn’t much.  It would be a bagel with slatherings, a bowl of cereal or an egg.  Throwing the pan on medium high and greasing her down with some Pam (I should have used olive oil), I put a half a cup of left over couscous in there to quickly saute and get a crunchier texture.  This could be done with rice, some chopped up pasta, bits of bread or other whole grain starch.  After a minute or two I pushed the couscous into the center and cracked two eggs on top and proceeded to break the yolks while still keeping the content in a patty-esque form.  Let cook, flip and let cook some more.  Voila!  Simple, healthy and tasty breakfast that a) gets rid of leftovers, b) completely satisfies hunger and nutrition and c) lets you attack the day like the warrior you are!  Washed down with a glass of watered down cranberry juice, all of the nutritional points to a good breakfast have been met: lean protein, whole grains and a fruit source.

The Secret

After a few tries I finally had a break through with a no-knead dough recipe.  The crumb was not sticky, it rose well and the crust was ideal.  Though there were still no mega fissures that make me think I cracked the code (yes, multilevel pun intended).  I’m going to have to will cracks into the next Boule or at least make some cuts to invite them.  It is the law of attraction, right?  I want a good cracked crust so I shall envision it and it will happen.  Or is it that statistics on the surface tension of baking bread correlated to escaping moisture will probably rule in my favor before long.  My trick was just actually kneading the thing for thirty seconds because somewhere deep inside of me I associate dough with kneading.

Let’s, however, revisit this Law of Attraction thing.  So maybe I am a little late for the bandwagon, though it is thousands of years in the rumbling, but I never really caught on to this secret phenom-hype.  A proper origin in the eyes of modern media seems to be back with the Babylonians, then through every great mind in the last few thousand years before it came back around the turn of the century with Haanel’s The Master Key System.  More currently we have seen the movement that started with What the ^&! Do We Know and, then, The Secret.

This faith system, based on wanting, believing and receiving seems to ride the fence between sacred and silly.  There are few people who would want to believe this more than myself.  That there is a methodology, a practice if you will, about believing so hard in what you want that it eventually, and coincidentally, arrives at your feet.  Whether by mail or by you walking there I do not know.  I do not know because I have not progressed beyond the trailer.  Every alternative media source, including Youtube, seems to have an issue with their version of The Secret.  The strange thing, and I shit you not, is that all the videos lock up after two seconds on the timer.  This happened with almost a dozen efforts at different sources.  Who and/or what does not want me to discover the secret?

It seems that I might have to will the dollars out of my pocket to find out more.  In Borders today I sat down and read a handful of pages and felt that the small, only sold in hardcover according to the sales clerk, book had a repetitive message about asking (politely I would imagine), believing and then receiving.  Does this mean that if I want to go to Cuba with some friends that I can will my ticket and the non-stamping of my visa?  Or does it mean using my AmEx and greasing a couple palms along the way?

Blog after blog had skeptics or hand-over-fist believers.  Anything that carries two extreme sides is definitely worth looking at…I mean take our current bipartisan political system.  Some tout that the hooey is beyond belief and that platinum shovels were hand-forged for this effort, citing all sorts of thoughts and opinions.  My favorite satirical remark was by Emily Yoffe, a contributor for Slate magazine.  She references the fact that The Secret labels Einstein as a master of the secret, and a teacher too.  Yoffe printed a quote from Einstein that did not make it into the film: Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.

Does this mean falling for the secret is part of our fallible nature or looking by something so simple is the plight of our specie?

Inside of me is the x-files lover of unexplained phenomena that wants to believe.  Does it seem remarkably simple?  Yes.  This is part of why this book is found under the genre: metaphysical; on the shelf next to the fill-in-the-blank self-help series.  But what if it is just a basic strength-of-mind trick that allows us to breakdown unseen barriers and find ourselves in opportunistic situations where we empower ourselves to make a decision that grants us a new opening.  Coincidental or not, we have all had things happen to us that have seemed oddly situated and plucked us out of a negative situation and into the womb of positive.  I have the perfect example.

In the late summer of 2002 I was running a kayaking outfitter in southern New Jersey, yet dating a girl in eastern Ohio who was assistant coaching the Buck Eyes field hockey team.  On a whim I decided to drive out and surprise her for the first game of the season that started at noon the next day.  I left at one a.m. on a ten hour drive.  For the mathematically challenged, this does not leave me with much room for error.  I felt this to be a testament as to my affections, so I drove for four hours and pulled over near Harrisburg for a short road nap.  Awaking to a complete fog that had settled on the highway amidst agricultural fields I attempted to start the car.  No dice.  Not even a small click.  Before falling asleep I forgot to turn the lights off.  Now I would never make my narrow window of time.

Exiting the car gave me no more information.  No mile-markers or highway signs were visible in the two minutes I ran in both directions.  The milk-mustached blonde bombshell on the billboard seemed to taunt me in my predicament.  Inside I almost cracked as I wanted to be there with her so bad, but I could not will the situation any more.  Standing outside of my car, ferrari red Riot Glide on top, hull down, I began to dial AAA for assistance, not sure what I would tell them.  Maybe they could triangulate my position.  Before I could hit send, a Jeep Cherokee emerges from the fog and passes me.  It has three white water boats on top.  Stopping a hundred yards ahead, I soon hear the unmistakable whine of a car backing up a high speed.  The driver was a guy I met almost two years before running my first river in Massachusetts, he was on his way to the Youghiogheny River in western PA.

In five minutes my battery was charged, the car running and we were both on our way.  I still have his business card that he gave me that day.  On the back I wrote, ‘get out of jail free card’.  Never would I forget why.  I had not seen him since I ran the Deerfield two years before and I have not seen him since.

Back in my ride, amp’d by the forces that converged on that six am pea soup on the highway between no where and no where, I drove with purpose.  In the end I did get to see Erin before her first game, arriving wired and ecstatic maybe thirty minutes before the start.  She was truly someone who I wanted to see and something allowed it to happen.

So when I ask myself if I believe, I think I do.  I mean…ahem, I do.  But what I do not believe is in paying that much more for it.  In my life I can say I have met one person who wills things and they happen, a true alpha if I ever met one.  Anyone who has crossed his path knows exactly what I am talking about.  Tim Kemple is a guy that makes things happen.  I have a lot of friends that have prospered and been successful on different paths, but Tim always seemed different.  More mono-focally directed.  Whether or not he believes in the laws of attraction, I do not know.  I have not asked him yet, but I am sure he would talk about it.  If anything, Tim just makes what he wants, because that is the way it should be.

We all have an innate ability to create opportunity.  Just like we all have had some wildly perfect experience that has allowed us to make things happen.  We also all know someone in our lives who was the person you never doubted to obtain that which they put their mind towards.  Putting ourselves on the line more often would reveal this.  If there is something I have learned from climbing rocks it is this: want it, envision it, make it happen.  It is that simple.  So simple I may be able to talk myself out of it, before I realize that I already believe it.

Having now re-convinced myself in the power of positive thinking I will aim to apply it to a handful of goals upon which my focus rests.  Positive thinking will entail doing the proper research, being experimental yet scientific.  Taking logical steps from the intermediate outcomes and trying to always be psyched.  This whole process does not sound like much of a secret, just a lot of work.  But we often find that if the work is towards a goal we want, then it feels a lot less like work.  And when breaks are made in our favor we can look at them as coincidental or predicated by the endeavor we invest.  I am reminded of a quote that an old friend gave me my freshman year of college.  Originally it is attributed to Socrates, but when he gave it to me it was through another source: The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear.

Right now I would settle for the secret to a great bread.  My own endeavoring got me a $40 enameled cast iron pot that I named Castirona.  I thought I was going to have to throw down two hundred bones for a Le Creuset pot.  Instead I endeavored and the solution appeared.  Now I will endeavor my next crust to appear to crack.

The No-Knead Bread Recipe…

So lately I have been putting all of my eggs in one flying basket and only riding Jetblue.  Their jetting experience has won me over from the leg room and 36 channels of television to the Wifi and quality venues in the Jetblue terminals.  On one of my last trips through JFK, a windstorm kicked up and ended up funneling three airports worth of jets through JFK’s air traffic control.  Caught up in a holding pattern for a while and then, inversely, caught taxiing on the ground, there was plenty of time to watch the NYTimes/Jetblue channel.  There are interviews with notable actors and chefs, video journals of 36 hr travel stints and recipes by the Minimalist chef Mark Bittman.  Bittman’s ‘Bitten’ was revisiting a no-knead bread recipe that he covered in 2006 with Jim Lahey of Sullivan Street Bread.

Originally this bread spread like wildfire on cooking blogs for the ease and from-the-hip methods that created an absolutely stellar bread.  The only observable downfall, from an amateur’s point of view, is the 12-20 hour sitting time the bread needed to let the yeast do its business.  Now Bittman was trying to speed up the recipe by overpopulating the original mix with more yeast.  The problem with this according to Lahey, whose standing moitif is that long, slow fermentation is the holy grail to bread making, is that the yeasty beasties start to digest more of the natural sugars in the bread, leaving you with a less ideal, although faster created, Boule style bread.  So the two bread-stars put their heads back together and ended up with a three to four hour rising time.  So this is with what I shall start.

three cups of flour (std white)
1/4 tsp yeast
1 tsp fresh ground sea salt
1 9/16 cup of really warm water
1/4 tsp red wine vinegar

mix up in a bowl, cover and let sit for 3-4 hours

When the dough came out and fell to a floured surface the mixture was still very loose and sticky.  Still I tried folding the edges over and balling it up.  This really did not happen in a textbook manner because the amalgam was still so soft that it could not keep shape.  Every time I folded one edge over on itself it kept rolling back as it gravity heavier in that spot.  It reminded me of a baby that cannot keep its head upright due to underdeveloped musculature.  Nevertheless, I still wrapped the doughy ball in a floured all-cotton cloth and will let it set for about an hour.

Thinking about the oven safe potential of my Silit stainless steel cookware, I scoured the internet looked for the temperature ceiling for my pot and could not find one.  Oh well, the show still needs to go on.  Preheating the oven, pot already inside, to 450 degrees is the next step before the final leg of the no knead bread challenge.  Taking the pot out to put the bread in showed no visible damage to the one weak area of the pot: a hard rubber piece between the metal handle and the glass lid.  The last time this piece expanded due to high absolute heat while cooking it contracted equally so, and all I had to do was loosen the screw, nudge it into place and then tighten; all back to normal.

Sitting on the counter for an hour, it seemed as if the wrapped dough ball did not expand, but instead, due to the high moisture content, just stuck like mad to the towel.  By the time the dough separated from its new cottony partner, about a 1/5 of it didn’t get into the preheated pot, to live forever with the towel.  The recipe states to shake the pot once or twice to get the bread into optimal position.  In my experiment, once the dough hit pot it already started to cook.  So upon a light shaking it changed but was already in its g-spot.

Thirty minutes with the top on, then fifteen with the top off revealed a bread to be eaten.  Okay, minus any type of a disclaimer, I say the bread was tasty, but not what will be the acme of my baking efforts.  The crust was good, but not some stellar cracked fantasy crust.  The rise was about the same you get from a group of high school seniors from the lunch lady….a little rowdy but nothing exceptional.  The crumb was a little moist, but that might be due to my impatience in not letting it rest long enough.  It was still really tasty for my first excursion into the world of breads.

The next morning the bread I had for breakfast was stellar.  I toasted it in the broiler and the crust was still flexibly yet crunchy and the crumb had dried out a bit, making it perfect for blackberry jam.  My next foray is already underway with two balls sitting out in the ‘lab’.  This time I’m all in on the OG recipe: 18 hours or bust.  The second ball is a wild experiment similar to the Mark Bittman faster-bread recipe.  Overpopulate the hell out of the yeast but add some vinegar, so there is more sugar for the yeast to enjoy without devouring the flavor precursors from the bread.  We will see shortly….