Sunday, March 18, 2007

 

Wonder bread

I am a pretty active baker, what with being from a bread basket state and all, where the streets are paved in flour and wheat hulls. Muffins, cookies, and cupcakes (of course) are my most frequent projects, but I like baking bread when I have a few hours to spare. But now, sweeping through the internets and the newspapers from Portland, OR to Hartford, CT, comes the No Knead Bread, a revolution in bread baking. Malena made the bread and it looked beautiful. My mom said it reminded her of European bread. Everyone is saying it's really, really good.

The trade off? Is that you better have 24 hours between the urge to bake and the urge to eat, because it needs 18 hours to rise, another 2 hours for the second rise, 45-60 minutes to bake, and enough time to let it cool. Since it snowed this weekend and our cars were pretty well stuck, I had the time. Hurrah!


I used half whole wheat flour and half white flour, and what was probably too much salt. The top is dusted in oat bran. The whole thing was a very jiggly blob, very unlike traditional yeast bread. It all felt....wrong. And you know what?


It's magic bread! It really is delicious, all complicated and savory, with a mysterious hint of sweetness (there's no sweetener added). The crust is crackly and chewy, and the inside is soft but holds its structure. I think I better mix up another batch soon to try some variations. The recipe is apparently very forgiving, so you can add any kind of ingredients (herbs, cheese, dried fruit, etc.) to make a savory or sweet bread.

And while I found baking on a snowy Saturday cozy, I am currently finding doing laundry on a snowy Monday night to be tiresome. Enough snow, New England. Let's see some green.

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Comments:
YUM! I am so happy you tried it out! It looks amazing . . . When I saw that recipe a few months ago, I was a non-believer too! Mmmmm, that looks like it would be wonderful with a steaming bowl of soup . . .

Send the recipe when you get a chance.
 
i kept meaning to try that recipe when all the food bloggers were making it, but i usually end up making challah when i do actually feel like bread-baking. now that you've recommended it, i'll definitely do it . . . someday!
 
that looks sooo good. i don't have the patience to make it tho'....
 
Green? You want to see green? Ha ha ha! Sorry....At least it sounds like you actually got more snow this weekend than we did -- just 1/2 inch, and it was gone by afternoon. (Just like home!)

Must try the bread, tho.
 
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