I know we have some excellent breadmakers in the house, so what I'm about to say is not for you. You're already sold on the idea of making your own bread and are better at it than I will ever be.
What I want to say to everyone else is that if you like bread...I mean REALLY like bread...and you've never tried making it yourself...and you own a heavy-bottomed Le Creuset-type Dutch oven (with lid)...you've GOT to try the popular Almost No-Knead bread recipe that's been floating around on the Internet for years.
You'll find versions of the recipe here and here with some helpful videos. Check them out before reading any further.
I tried the recipe many years ago, forgot about it, and just started getting back into it recently. In fact, if you follow TVWBB on Instagram, you may have seen some pics of my bread efforts.
The ingredients are really simple:
Note the "unbleached" flour. I never paid much attention to flour, I didn't know there were bleached and unbleached versions. Apparently, bleached flour is better for cookies, pie crusts, quick breads, muffins, and pancakes, while unbleached flour has a denser texture and provides more structure in baked goods like a yeast bread. Anywho, you'll find unbleached flour sitting right next to bleached flour on the supermarket shelf.
If you've got a kitchen scale, just weigh the 15 ounces of flour in a large mixing bowl, whisk in the yeast and salt, then tare (zero out) the scale and weigh the 7 ounces of water plus 3 ounces of beer. Then add the vinegar.
Use a large rubber spatula to fold the mixture together, scraping up dry flour from the bottom of the bowl, until it all comes together into a shaggy ball. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let sit at room temperature for 8 to 18 hours.
Place a 12"x16" sheet of parchment paper inside a 10" skillet and spray with non-stick cooking spray. Transfer dough to a lightly floured work surface and knead 10 - 15 times. If you don't know how to knead dough (I didn't), the video in the second link shows you how easy it is. However, this dough is very wet and sticky, so I found that spraying my hands with non-stick cooking spray helps, and using a bench scraper to scrape up the dough and fold it over on itself and then pressing it down with my hand works best.
After kneading, shape dough into a ball by pulling edges into the middle. Place dough seam side down on sprayed parchment in skillet, spray surface of dough with non-stick spray, cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise at room temperature for another 2 hours.
To bake, I follow this helpful revision to the original recipe published by Cook's Illustrated magazine that makes this bread easier and safer to make:
Skip the 500*F preheating of the Dutch oven. Instead, place the dough on parchment into a cold Dutch oven, put on the lid, and place into a cold oven. Turn on the oven and set it to 425*F. When the oven reaches 425*F, set the timer for 30 minutes. At the end of 30 minutes, remove the lid and continue baking 20-30 minutes until the bread registers 200*F with an instant-read thermometer. For me, it usually takes just an additional 20 minutes.
The bottom of the loaf gets a little more crispy than I'd like, maybe that has to do with my oven. I experimented with placing a half sheet pan on the rack below the Dutch oven to deflect some of the heat, but that caused it to brown too little. I recently tried placing a round pizza pan about the size of the Dutch oven under it during the last 20 minutes of baking, but that didn't make any difference. If anyone has a tip here, let me know.
I hope you'll give almost no-knead bread a try! You'll be surprised just how delicious it is!
Related thread: NYT NEW! No Knead Bread Faster and White & Whole Grain
What I want to say to everyone else is that if you like bread...I mean REALLY like bread...and you've never tried making it yourself...and you own a heavy-bottomed Le Creuset-type Dutch oven (with lid)...you've GOT to try the popular Almost No-Knead bread recipe that's been floating around on the Internet for years.
You'll find versions of the recipe here and here with some helpful videos. Check them out before reading any further.
I tried the recipe many years ago, forgot about it, and just started getting back into it recently. In fact, if you follow TVWBB on Instagram, you may have seen some pics of my bread efforts.
The ingredients are really simple:
- 3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour (15 ounces by weight) plus additional for dusting work surface
- 1⁄4 teaspoon RapidRise instant yeast
- 1 1⁄2 teaspoons table salt
- 7 ounces room temperature water
- 3 ounces cheap lager beer, e.g. Bud
- 1 Tablespoon white vinegar
Note the "unbleached" flour. I never paid much attention to flour, I didn't know there were bleached and unbleached versions. Apparently, bleached flour is better for cookies, pie crusts, quick breads, muffins, and pancakes, while unbleached flour has a denser texture and provides more structure in baked goods like a yeast bread. Anywho, you'll find unbleached flour sitting right next to bleached flour on the supermarket shelf.
If you've got a kitchen scale, just weigh the 15 ounces of flour in a large mixing bowl, whisk in the yeast and salt, then tare (zero out) the scale and weigh the 7 ounces of water plus 3 ounces of beer. Then add the vinegar.
Use a large rubber spatula to fold the mixture together, scraping up dry flour from the bottom of the bowl, until it all comes together into a shaggy ball. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let sit at room temperature for 8 to 18 hours.
Place a 12"x16" sheet of parchment paper inside a 10" skillet and spray with non-stick cooking spray. Transfer dough to a lightly floured work surface and knead 10 - 15 times. If you don't know how to knead dough (I didn't), the video in the second link shows you how easy it is. However, this dough is very wet and sticky, so I found that spraying my hands with non-stick cooking spray helps, and using a bench scraper to scrape up the dough and fold it over on itself and then pressing it down with my hand works best.
After kneading, shape dough into a ball by pulling edges into the middle. Place dough seam side down on sprayed parchment in skillet, spray surface of dough with non-stick spray, cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise at room temperature for another 2 hours.
To bake, I follow this helpful revision to the original recipe published by Cook's Illustrated magazine that makes this bread easier and safer to make:
Skip the 500*F preheating of the Dutch oven. Instead, place the dough on parchment into a cold Dutch oven, put on the lid, and place into a cold oven. Turn on the oven and set it to 425*F. When the oven reaches 425*F, set the timer for 30 minutes. At the end of 30 minutes, remove the lid and continue baking 20-30 minutes until the bread registers 200*F with an instant-read thermometer. For me, it usually takes just an additional 20 minutes.
The bottom of the loaf gets a little more crispy than I'd like, maybe that has to do with my oven. I experimented with placing a half sheet pan on the rack below the Dutch oven to deflect some of the heat, but that caused it to brown too little. I recently tried placing a round pizza pan about the size of the Dutch oven under it during the last 20 minutes of baking, but that didn't make any difference. If anyone has a tip here, let me know.
I hope you'll give almost no-knead bread a try! You'll be surprised just how delicious it is!
Related thread: NYT NEW! No Knead Bread Faster and White & Whole Grain
