This bread is pretty easy, no matter what it looks like, it tastes really good...and makes your house smell amazing!!!

If anyone has any questions about it, you can watch the originator of the recipe, Jim Lahey, make it with Martha Stewart on her website...enjoy!

Not one to leave well enough alone, I have been playing with this recipe. I found the bread to have all the things that make a great loaf......except flavor. Adding more salt and some whole wheat helped but it needed character.

I thought about adding some sourdough starter but that complicates one of the attractions of this bread- simplicity. I remembered that King Arthur sells an instant yeast/beast from Lalvain called LA-2 Pain de Campagne Starter. I substituted this in the recipe. It took 24 hours to look bubbly so now I add a pinch of SAF and things are back on schedule.

The results? Fantastic. If I were to be served this in a restaurant, I would know that good things were going to follow. It has a slight sour tang but not assertive.

I tried King Harvest flour from Gold Medal that Rose Levy Beranbaum recommends. I believe she has a financial interest. KA is chewier and rises a little more.


So here is my version-

1/4 cup whole wheat flour
KA all purpose flour- add to get the flour total to 468 gm
354 gm 80 degree water
10.5 gm (1.75 tsp) fine sea salt
1/4 tsp LA-2 Pain de Campagne Starter
pinch SAF red yeast

The rest of the technique is the same except my oven is at 425 or the bottom burns. Cast iron doesn't work for me. The bottom gets too hard even if not burned.

You have the power. Use it for good and not for evil.

Kit

I love it when this thread gets bumped. I still play with this recipe too, although not with your degree of precision...

So, can you recommend to me a good scale?

peterc wrote:So, can you recommend to me a good scale?

Food scales

So, can you recommend to me a good scale?

I have an American Weigh AMW-1000. It will go up to 1kg in .1gm increments. It has a tare function and displays in oz, ozt, dwt should you need that. The 'deck' is 6"X6". I got it on Ebay for $50.

Kit

Cookie baked a loaf of bread using this method this weekend. Basic bread flour, kosher salt.

I'm surprised that it turned out a nice product for such minimal effort.



Best,
Michael

eatchicago - that's some gorgeous bread

kit - where did you find the campagne starter?

question - jimthebeerguy got me a cast iron dutch oven. i'd like to use it for this bread recipe but am afraid it's too big. I think it's about 10 quarts. what do you think - should I try to form it in a loaf and bake it on a cookie sheet, or do you think the size of my dutch oven is OK? if i remember correctly from all of your descriptions, the dough moves around a lot and maybe putting it on a cookie sheet is not a good idea.

St. P,

The Dutch Oven is an intrinsic component to getting the result pictured above. Baking instead on a cookie sheet will simply change the cooking method and alter the results. I've baked mine in a 6-8 quart pyrex Dutch Oven with no ill effect.

Regards,

Saint Pizza wrote:should I try to form it in a loaf and bake it on a cookie sheet, or do you think the size of my dutch oven is OK? if i remember correctly from all of your descriptions, the dough moves around a lot and maybe putting it on a cookie sheet is not a good idea.

The cookie sheet is not going to hold enough heat for this. The dutch oven is critical.

I don't think the size of the dutch oven will be a problem. Our loaf was smaller than the inside of our dutch oven and it held its size and shape.

It's also critical because you need the enclosure to trap the steam coming off the bread, and thus produce the crust.

I made this without a Dutch Oven, on a pizza stone, covering the dough with an overturned stainless steel bowl to keep the steam in. Camme out pretty well, I thought. Sorry - no pix.

kit - where did you find the campagne starter?

http://www.kingarthurflour.com/shop/landing.jsp?go=Home
Go to Bread Baking-> yeasts , starters and leaveners. It is called LA-2 Pain de Campagne Starter.

a cast iron dutch oven. i'd like to use it for this bread recipe but am afraid it's too big. I think it's about 10 quarts.

I don't think size matters.

kit

Please forgive this basic question from a neophyte bread baker, but I'm just having so much fun with this baking method:

If I wanted to add things to this bread (such as chopped walnuts, carraway seeds, or dried cranberries) at what point in the process would it be best to do this?

Best,
Michael

eatchicago wrote:Please forgive this basic question from a neophyte bread baker, but I'm just having so much fun with this baking method:

If I wanted to add things to this bread (such as chopped walnuts, carraway seeds, or dried cranberries) at what point in the process would it be best to do this?

Best,
Michael

I'm a neophyte too, but I've added nuts and dried fruits at the very beginning and it worked well. Raisins and such on the surface tend to burn a little too much and I try to cover with a bit of dough when baking.

Michael,

I have not tried this particular method of dough prep, but I usually add such things near the end of kneading since I don't want anything to interfere with gluten development. There are a few exceptions. When I make breads with rosemary (rolls, foccacia, etc.), I add finely minced rosemary near the start of kneading since I feel the oils from the herb are more effectively released with kneading. I use just a little and the result is just a hint which I really like.

FWIW.

Bill/SFNM

From 11/21/07 NY Times:

I THOUGHT the Dining section published the easiest bread recipe possible last year when Mark Bittman wrote about the no-knead approach of Jim Lahey, owner of Sullivan Street Bakery. ...

The method he wrote about, though, looks like molecular gastronomy next to the one developed by Jeff Hertzberg, a physician from Minneapolis. His technique is more or less as streamlined as this: Mix flour, salt, yeast and water. Let it sit a bit, refrigerate it, take some out and let it rise, then bake it.

The crusty, full-flavored loaf that results may be the world’s easiest yeast bread.

The recipe is here: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/21/dinin ... ref=dining

The article is here: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/21/dinin ... ref=dining

I made the new easy bread recipe last night. I have to say, it's not really that much easier than the other recipe. It's certainly much faster, taking about 4 or 5 hours from start to finish, but with this recipe you need a pizza stone and a peel. I didn't have a peel, and my dough kinda stuck to the surface I formed the boules on, so I had to kind of wiggle a spatula underneath to get it loose and then pick up with my hand to plop down onto the pizza stone. I thought the other method was easier, really.

Anyhow, on to the bread. It was good. Heck, any homemade bread is usually good. However, not nearly as crusty as the other bread, and I also got a bit of a denser crumb. If you divide the recipe into 8 (instead of 4), I think they'd be perfect for making buns.

All in all, I think the bread produced by the other recipe was much better. Thicker, crispier crust, better crumb, although, flavorwise, not a heck of a whole lot of difference.

Subscribers of Cook's Illustrated will get an examination of the NYT bread in the Jan/Feb issue. In an article called No-Knead Bread 2.0, Kenji Alt investigates the semantics of the word 'no' as well as slinging dough, beer yeasties and the science behind atolysis.

Binko wrote:I made the new easy bread recipe last night. I have to say, it's not really that much easier than the other recipe. It's certainly much faster, taking about 4 or 5 hours from start to finish, but with this recipe you need a pizza stone and a peel. I didn't have a peel, and my dough kinda stuck to the surface I formed the boules on, so I had to kind of wiggle a spatula underneath to get it loose and then pick up with my hand to plop down onto the pizza stone. I thought the other method was easier, really.

Anyhow, on to the bread. It was good. Heck, any homemade bread is usually good. However, not nearly as crusty as the other bread, and I also got a bit of a denser crumb. If you divide the recipe into 8 (instead of 4), I think they'd be perfect for making buns.

All in all, I think the bread produced by the other recipe was much better. Thicker, crispier crust, better crumb, although, flavorwise, not a heck of a whole lot of difference.

I made this bread too and it turned out pretty good. I also refrigerated the rest of the dough and have since made another small loaf from that which was also good. This dough is much easier to handle and doesn't flatten out as much as the original. You can also make it in one day, which is nice. I let the dough rise (and bake) on a piece of parchment on a paddle (you could use a baking sheet,) cut the slashes on top, and just slid the paper and bread onto the quarry tiles after pouring a cup of hot water in the broiler pan. I don't see why this couldn't be made in the pot either. While the crust was crisp, it wasn't quite as good as the original no-knead recipe baked in the pot. The recipe also said you could bake on the back of a sheet pan if you didn't have a baking stone.

The Cooks Illustrated JAN/FEB 2008 alterations to the original no-knead sound very interesting. They improve the taste by adding beer and vinegar, making a drier dough and kneading for 15 seconds which makes the dough easier to handle and gives a higher rise, and finally to rise the bread on a piece of parchment in a skillet and using the parchment as a sling to plop the paper and the bread into the pot. The last tip alone is worth the subscription price as I make a mess of the bread and the kitchen everytime I try to flip that loose dough off the towel into an extremely hot pot. The dough always sticks to the towel, the flour goes all over the stove top, and the bread always winds up oddly shaped. But it does taste good.

I finally made this over the weekend. Mrs. AS saw a version of this in Vogue and I tried to replicate that.

I set the oven for 550, which produced a great crust but a little raw inside it seemed. I also loosen the knob on my dutch oven (le crueset says do not heat above 450, but I wrapped it in foil and did it anyway. Don't tell.) Next time, I'll do it at 500 for the whole time. I took it out early because it was starting to burn on the outside.

It WAS messy.

It was very much worth it. For about 30 cents in ingredients you can have a loaf worthy of serving anyone.

Next time I'll put the parchment on the kitchen towel.

Just finished reading this thread with immense interest and wanted to share:

I started making the no-knead bread last month after reading the recipe in the Mother Earth News magazine and was absolutely ecstatic with the results. Needless to say, everyone on my gift list received a loaf or 2 of this bread and a nice little pot of homemade herbed butter.

A few things are done differently, of course:

I grind a blend of my own flour in my coveted Golden grain grinder; a mix of any or all of the following: wheat, rye, buckwheat, amaranth, oat, millet, spelt.

In the first stage, I add sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, some sugar and extra salt. I did omit the towel phaze, not sure why... lazyness? but it worked just fine.

When I lump it into my cast iron dutch oven or chinese hot pot, seam side up, down left or right, covered with flour and extra salt, 30 minutes later and 450 degrees, we are one lovely smelling house.

Cheers and it has been a delight reading everyone's soujournes through the making of old world bread.

AngrySarah wrote:I finally made this over the weekend. Mrs. AS saw a version of this in Vogue and I tried to replicate that.

I set the oven for 550, which produced a great crust but a little raw inside it seemed. I also loosen the knob on my dutch oven (le crueset says do not heat above 450, but I wrapped it in foil and did it anyway. Don't tell.) Next time, I'll do it at 500 for the whole time. I took it out early because it was starting to burn on the outside.

It WAS messy.

It was very much worth it. For about 30 cents in ingredients you can have a loaf worthy of serving anyone.

Next time I'll put the parchment on the kitchen towel.

The recipe calls for a 450 oven. Perhaps baking at 550 was why the crust was good but the inside was raw?

I just made this for the first time using Cook's Illustrated's 2.0 version of the recipe, and christening my new Le Creuset 5 quart Dutch Oven (thanks Santa!). I have to say that I was thrilled, in part because of the sheer simplicity of the recipe. I gave a still-warm slice to a friend who commented that he'd like to taste a little more salt in the dough. I admit that I'm a salt-lover, and I was also thinking that it would be great if the top crust had a light sprinkling of sea salt. We're having a dinner party this weekend, and I'm already thinking about making another loaf or two to serve to our guests.

I never made the original recipe, but I've had it a few times at my aunt's house. I'd describe her version as good, but much more dense than the Cook's Illustrated version. (Hard to tell if that's a result of the recipe or the baker. My aunt has a tendency to make a lot substitutions and additions in an effort to make things healthier. The result is not always a good thing.)

Can someone provide a neutrally-worded adaptation of the 2.0 recipe, or even just the points where it differs from the original "no"-knead Dutch Oven recipe?

Santander, I can't remember the original, as I bastardized it immediately to make it gluten free. But, if I remember, it was only flour, water, salt, and a small amount of yeast.

CI adds beer. And vinegar.

I'll definitely try it GF. If I do, my ingredients will be similar to CI, except for the flours and type of beer I'll use:

3 cups total of several gluten free flours--combo of brown rice, sorghum, Expandex, and potato starch - maybe a dash of quinoa or some white teff
1 tsp xanthan gum
1/4 t instant or rapid rise yeast
1 to 1 1/2 t salt
14 T water, room temp
6 T beer, room temp
1 T vinegar

From the many practive loaves I made with the original recipe, trying to get a good gluten free forumlation, I started using a method that I see CI has also adopted. After you let it rise the first time, shape it and place it on a piece of parchment. I place mine in a bowl (the size/shape I want my loaf to be) to let it rise, letting the bowl shape the rise (the gluten free dough needs that structure). Then, when I'm ready to bake, I simply pull the dough right out of the bowl and place it in the hot pan.

Another thing I started doing was to put in all my flours at one time. There is no benefit to GF dough to add some later. CI appears to think similarly on this, too.

Hope this helps.

Santander wrote:Can someone provide a neutrally-worded adaptation of the 2.0 recipe, or even just the points where it differs from the original "no"-knead Dutch Oven recipe?

You can get a 14-day free trial to CI's website and recipe database if you'd like to see this and all of their recipes. I signed up over the weekend, and spent a couple hours copying and saving recipes that I want to try. But to answer your question...

3 c all-purpose flour
1/4 t instant or rapid-rise yeast
1 1/2 t table salt
3/4 c + 2 T room-temp water
1/4 c + 2 T mild lager
1 T white vinegar

I don't have time to rewrite the instructions completely, but the first rise is 8-18 hours, then you knead it for ~15 seconds before letting rise again for ~2 hours. Other directions are approximately identical except CI recommends that for the 2nd rise and while baking you place the dough on parchment paper sprayed with Pam.

Has anyone tried refridgerating the dough after the 2nd rise, then baking at a later time?

Thank you both. Other comments above suggest 2.0 works (or is designed for) the Dutch oven. But would oiled parchment paper really go in the DO, or only if you were opting for a stone / sheet?

Santander wrote:Thank you both. Other comments above suggest 2.0 works (or is designed for) the Dutch oven. But would oiled parchment paper really go in the DO, or only if you were opting for a stone / sheet?

Yes, you use the parchment in the dutch oven. There is no need to oil the parchment. They recommend letting it rise on the parchment in a skillet and then using the parchment as a sling to transer it into (and out of) the hot pot. This is so much easier and neater.

If you get the 14-day trial membership, take a look at two videos related to this particular recipe. One demonstrates each step involved in the process and was very useful.

Jyoti

Has anyone with a Le Creuset dutch oven or similiar enameled cast iron dutch oven, noticed any problems with the knob blistering or cracking or with the enameled finish discoloring, chipping or cracking? The recipe calls for heating a dutch oven to 500 degrees F before adding the dough. This is above the manufacturer's maximum recommended temperature of 450F and involves heating an empty pan, something that Le Creuset does not recommend. I'm reluctant to experiment given the replacement cost. Maybe the answer is to purchase a basic cast iron Lodge dutch oven to use for bread baking. Any feeback would be appreciated.