I enjoy cooking in almost all of it’s forms, and am actually pretty good at it when I want to be. One of the things that I love, but I seem to manage to fail at rather consistently, is making bread. Pizza dough? I’m your man. Cake? Got it covered. Bread…. notsomuch. I’ve probably tried about 15 different bread recipes, and have only managed to get a decent loaf probably 3 times. Everything changed, however, when I found this “No Knead Ciabatta” recipe on reddit. It’s not technically ciabatta. What it is though, is good, and very very simple.
I read through the comments, and learned that it’s an adaptation of Jim Lahey’s No Knead Bread Recipe. I hunted around and found a video showing the technique, and watched it a couple times. I decided to have a go at it.
There were a couple differences between the recipe posted on Reddit and the NYT recipe, but being a redditor, I had to try the Reddit way first. I am glad though that I watched the video first. It shows what the dough should be looking like at various states, and this dough looked so far from any bread that I’ve made, that I’m sure I would have added a ton of flour and messed it all up, had I not watched the video. In any case, the bread turned out great. I’m still looking for a good dutch oven, so I used a 2qt Pyrex round Casserole dish instead, and it wound up being the perfect size. There’s only one thing that I’m going to change next time. The Reddit recipe has you bring the oven up to 500 degrees, cook for a half hour, remove the lid and cook for another 5 – 8 minutes. The NYT recipe has you cook at 450 for a half hour, then remove the lid and cook for up to another half hour. Next time, I think I’ll use the NYT’s heat recommendation. While the bread was better than anything I’ve made up to this point, the center could have been a little bit more done, but I feel like if I left it in there at 500 for too much longer, it would have burned. Baking it at 450 for a bit longer time seems to me like it’s going to be the ticket.
As a testament to how good it was, the bread didn’t even make it a day in my house. I started the dough on Saturday night, baked the bread Sunday afternoon, and by Monday morning – gone without a trace.
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Is it possible that the reason the center wasn’t quite done was because you used too small of a dutch oven? When I’ve seen this method used, they usually use one 3 – 4x larger than the 2qt that you said you used.
Could be… I’m thinking about making another one tomorrow. I have a pretty heavy pot that might work a bit better than the 2qt casserole. I’ll use the heavy pot next time, but I think I’m still going to go with the 450 degrees 30/30min and see what happens.
rlogan recently posted..No Knead Bread from Reddit and the NYT
Hey! Found you via reddit (which is the source of the recipe – very meta!). So, I’m terrible at making bread too – is this really that easy?
Indeed it is! If you watch the video that’s linked in the summary, they say that even a 6 year old could do it. That might be stretching it a bit, but it really is very simple.
rlogan recently posted..No Knead Bread from Reddit and the NYT
It looks like you probably could have left it in for a while longer at 500. I havent made the no-knead yet myself but a lot of the pictures that I’ve seen on other blogs had a much darker crust but it didn’t burn.
Gone by Monday morning? Shame on you!! I eats way faster than that. ;p
Yum Yucky recently posted..Stupid Diet Tip 165
I don’t usually eat breakfast especially when I’m in a hurry for school. I also don’t want to eat that fast I might not digest well.
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How can you prevent numerous air holes on your bread? Anyway are you really expert on bread making? That picture post really looks yummy!
jhonix7 recently posted..- DATING TIPS FOR MEN
Usually, I’m not trying to get fewer air holes – I’m trying to get more! I’ve found that if you disturb the dough too much while it’s proofing with the yeast, that’s what usually kills the air holes.
I certainly wouldn’t consider myself an expert baker (Especially since I’m doing one of those silly super-low-carb diets now), but it is something I enjoy doing.
Thanks for the comment!
rlogan recently posted..Party at Vecchia Osteria by Pasquale!
Looks like so delicious and yummy blog, I want to taste this kind of bread. Can you teach me how to prepare that one? Or give me some cookbook so that I can manage myself in preparing that bread on my own. Thanks for sharing this blog, have a nice day ahead.
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They say that even a 6 year old could do it. That might be stretching it a bit, but it really is very simple. |
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