Slow Europe

One of the things that I love in France, Germany and Switzerland is the bread! A basket of perfect croissants in the morning at a cafe in France, a bakery with at least ten types of fresh baked bread in Germany, the wonderful whole wheat breads served for breakfast in a tea room in Switzerland.

We have great quality bread in North America too - it is not all Wonder Bread here! In Santa Fe, Sage Bakehouse produces artisanal, organic bread.

Jim Lahey, owner of Sullivan St Bakery in New York City, makes good European-style bread. You can purchase it at their store and other NYC locations. A couple of years ago, he published his recipe for No-Knead Bread on his website. A version of his recipe was printed in the New York Times in November 2006 - No-Knead Bread - and (it seems like) everyone in the US started making this bread.

My friend Chris (Slow Travel moderator) posted about it in the Food Forum on the Slow Travel Forums and many Slow Travelers started making bread and experimenting with the recipe (the Food Forum is for paid members only - they have a lively exchange of recipes). I missed all this because I did not read the food forum; I assumed they were always talking about meat, sugar and wine - which I am not interested in. Boy, was I wrong - my apologies to the Food Forum Followers!!

After everyone in the world had made the No-Knead Bread, I finally discovered it. Colleen emailed me that she was making “Chris’ Bread” and I got curious. I have not baked bread in twenty years. Back in my enthusiastic Macrobiotic days we used to “grow” our own sourdough and bake bread - but it never came out that well for me. So I gave up. But we like bread; our usual breakfast is coffee and toast (with good bread from Sage Bakehouse).

For the last few months I have been experimenting with Chris’ version of the No-Knead Bread and another version she sent me a link to - Multigrain No-Knead Bread by Ellen Jackson, on Culinate. I have republished Chris’ recipe and my own version of the Multigrain recipe (with photos) below, plus listed some resources including two very good YouTube videos of the Sullivan St Bakery version.

This bread is easy (and fun) to make, tastes great and can be made in many variations. The best thing about this bread is how little yeast is used (for those of us who do not like to eat a lot of yeasted foods) - only 1/4 teaspoon for a medium sized loaf.

Amazingly Easy and Delicious No-Knead Bread

By Chris, originally posted on the Slow Travel Food Forums (premium members only can see the post) November 2006

No-Knead Bread recipe adapted from Jim Lahey, Sullivan Street Bakery (Chris’ notes are in blue)

• 3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting (I use bread flour. My best loaves are: ½ cup whole wheat, ½ cup Semolina, 2 cups unbleached bread flour.)
• ¼ teaspoon instant yeast (I used Active Dry and it worked fine)
• 1¼ teaspoons salt (I followed the recommendations on the other message board and upped this to 1½ teaspoons)
• Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed

1. In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 5/8 cups water (1½ is enough with bread flour), 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. (Next time I’m using parchment paper - the dough sticks to the towel.) 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. (It’s important to use a pan with a tight lid to keep the steam in. I used my 5.5 quart Le Creuset dutch oven. If you use this kind of pan, either remove the knob from the handle or wrap it in thick layers of foil to keep it from being damaged by this very hot oven.)

5. 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.

6. 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

Using Whole Wheat Flour

You need a certain amount of white or bread flour to make these recipes work. Whole wheat does not have enough gluton and produces a heavy bread. I do Chris’ recipe above as she recommends with the bread flour, semolina and whole wheat. She recommends the King Arthur Flours (available at Whole Foods). I get the Organic Whole Wheat or the Organic White Whole Wheat (it is still whole wheat but is a big lighter). For the white flour I use either their Organic Unbleached White or their Bread Flour.

Whole Wheat No-Knead Bread

By Pauline, adapted from Multigrain No-Knead Bread by Ellen Jackson, on Culinate. This makes a larger loaf of bread (using 4 cups flour instead of 3 for the recipe above). I cut it in half and freeze half.

• 2 cups lukewarm water (2¼ cups in Santa Fe because it is dry here)
• ½ tsp active dry yeast
• 2 Tbsp barley-malt syrup or honey (Barley-malt gives the bread a darker color)
• 2 cups all-purpose or bread flour (King Arthur Organic Unbleached White or Bread Flour)
• 2 cups whole-wheat flour (King Arthur Organic Whole Wheat or Organic White Whole Wheat)
• 1 Tbsp salt
•  Wheat bran or cornmeal (I use whole wheat flour but will try bran next time)

Step 1

Combine the water, yeast, and sweetener in a large bowl. Allow the yeast to bloom (proof) for 5 minutes. In another bowl, combine the flours with the salt. Add the dry ingredients to the bowl with the yeast mixture and stir until blended with a wooden spoon; the dough will be extremely sticky and shaggy. Cover the bowl with a wet cloth and let it rest between 12 and 20 hours at room temperature.

Step 2

The dough is ready when its surface is speckled with air bubbles.

Step 3

Lightly flour a work surface and place the dough on it. The dough is very wet and you have to scrape it out of the bowl.

Step 4

Dust the top of the dough with some more flour and fold it over on itself a couple of times (watch how they do this in the videos listed below - they flatten, fold in thirds, then fold in half). Cover the dough with plastic wrap and let it sit 15 to 20 minutes. Meanwhile, line a large bowl or colander with a cotton kitchen towel (not terry cloth) and generously coat it with wheat bran, cornmeal, or flour.

Step 5

Using just enough flour to keep the dough from sticking to your fingers, pick up the dough and gently and quickly shape it into a ball. Put the ball into the prepared kitchen towel, seam-side up. It looks messy and misshapen. Cover the dough with another flour-dusted towel and let it rise for 1½ hours.

After 1½ hours, place a 6-to-8-quart heavy pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex, or ceramic - I use a Le Creuset 7¼ quart Round French Oven) in the oven and preheat to 475 degrees. Let the dough rise for another 30 minutes while the oven is preheating.

Step 6

The dough is ready to bake when it has more than doubled in size and springs back when poked. Carefully remove the pot from the oven (it is hot!). This is the tricky part - slip your hand under the kitchen towel holding the dough, so that you are cradling the loaf in your palm. This is a large loaf and it is hard to do this - but it always works. In one sure, confident motion, flip the dough into the pot, with the seam side headed for the bottom.

Step 7

Using potholders - the pan is hot - shake the pot to straighten out or redistribute the dough if necessary. Cover the pot with a lid, return it to the oven, and reduce the heat to 450 degrees. Bake for 30 minutes, then remove the lid and rotate the pan. Bake an additional 20 to 30 minutes, until the loaf is deeply browned. If you’re uncertain whether the bread is done or not, carefully turn the loaf out of the pan; if the bottom is quite dark (just short of burned) and sounds hollow when you thump or knock it, it’s ready.

Step 8

The bread is done - remove pot from oven and turn out the bread.

Step 9

Cool on a rack before slicing.

Step 10

High quality, organic, mostly whole wheat bread, fresh from your oven.

Timing the Recipe

You spend about 20 minutes working on this bread, but the time from start to finish is almost 20 hours.

• Start the bread at 4pm, it has risen by 8am the next morning (16 hrs), another two hours rising and bake it at 10:15am (before the summer day gets too hot).
• Start the bread at 10pm, it has risen by 2pm the next afternoon (16 hrs), another two hours rising and bake it at 4:15pm (when we have our cool rainstorms in the summer).

Resources

• YouTube Video: No-Knead Bread, by the New York Times. Mark Bittman, a.k.a. The Minimalist, shares a recipe on how to make no-knead bread where the secret is letting the time do the work. He is at Sullivan St Bakery and Jim Lahey demonstrates how to make the bread.
• Recipe: No-Knead Bread, by Sullivan St Bakery
• Recipe: No-Knead Bread, by New York Times
• YouTube Video: No-Knead Bread, by Breadtopia. Another demonstration of making this bread.
• Recipe: No-Knead Bread, by Breadtopia
• Recipe: Multigrain No-Knead Bread, by Ellen Jackson, on Culinate
• Photos: Slow Europe Photos, photos making my version of the Multigrain No-Knead Bread (slideshow)
• Recipe: Le Pain qu’on ne petrit pas, by Chocolate and Zucchini

Final Note (on a LONG post)

Why am I the inexperienced baker posting about baking this no-knead bread when there are far better resources for this? Because I want to tell all my friends about it - now I can just link to this post. And, to show that an inexperienced baker can make great bread.

The ironic thing (and I really mean ironic, with the correct meaning :) ) is that I have been working on this post all afternoon and now it is 8:26pm and dinner is not even started. So I am writing about baking your own bread, but two Amy’s Veggie Loafs are in the microwave for dinner tonight!

I love Wordpress, but it is a bitch when you want to do your own formatting - like having those images line up nicely beside the steps. Argh! Solution - use a heading level and style it to clear the float.

If you want to print this post, I formatted my print stylesheet to not display images - so it prints out nicely.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 8th, 2008 at 7:30 pm and is filed under Bring Europe Home. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.