Sometimes you just have a good bread day.
This was made with the New York Times/Sullivan Street Bakery/Jim Lahey no-knead bread recipe, or an approximation thereof.
I used Lowan instant yeast and white high-gluten bread flour. (Ordinary plain flour actually works just fine.) I did the second rise in the bowl – doing it in a tea towel is a complete pain in the arse, no matter how well floured or cornmealed it is. I baked it in a well-preheated Le Creuset oval Dutch oven, which was placed within the oven of a beautiful shiny strokable new Lofra 900 mm dual-fuel range.
There is orange soup [1] in the crockpot, and life is good.
[1] Which, confusingly enough, contains no oranges. It’s made with real chicken stock (we had roast chicken yesterday and the re-loaded slow cooker simmered gently overnight), butternut pumpkin, sweet potato, carrot, and white potato. I’ll stir some cream or yoghurt in at the end, and sprinkle a heap of cracked pepper and some parmesan on top.
You don’t knead that.
(Getting that out of the way early)
*Runs away*
YUM!
Can I come to your place for dinner?
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It was delicious!
My mouth is watering just looking at that bread. It’s *gorgeous*.
I currently have a loaf of no-knead bread in the oven too! (Also in a Le Creuset). Mine’s made with sourdough starter rather than yeast, which adds to the deliciousness (and 1 cup wholemeal, 2 cups bakers flour, and I do find the bakers flour makes a difference from plain flour). The orange soup sounds great, I may have to try it.
I’ve only tried one brand of plain flour, a decent one. I gather than plain flours vary quite a bit from brand to brand and place to place. I wonder if adding the wholemeal also means that the high-gluten flour makes more of a difference. I find the wholemeal really flattens the loaf, even at about a quarter of the total; the bread is still fine, it’s just a quite different bread.
Today was the first time I tried mixing in wholemeal, but the loaf seems exactly the same size – slightly more flavour is all! And using sourdough starter makes an enormous difference to the flavour as well.
It could well have to do with the brand of plain flour, because I use the cheapest possible home brand, but bakers flour has more protein and it does result in a better texture, although the bread still rises the same amount with plain flour. I’ve also tried (with other recipes, not with this one) using plain flour and adding a teaspoon of soy flour, that also works quite well as it raises the protein levels (soy flour is the main ingredient of fancy-shmancy “bread improvers” and straight soy flour works just as well).
I bought some rye at the market yesterday, with the next loaf I’m going to try using 1/3 rye.
I’ve created a link to your post in the newest “Cast Iron Around the Web” entry at http://www.cookingincastiron.com
Rick Mansfields last blog post..Cast Iron Around the Web: July 19, 2008