Carb Heaven Comes By Way of NOT Kneading the Bread

A very exciting thing happened yesterday. Actually, it was happening on Sunday too but that very exciting thing was baked an eaten, finally, yesterday so we will save the semantics for people who don't eat bread. So yes. I made bread. Actually, I made no knead bread and it was freaking fantastic. But, it was a very long process with many steps and many moments standing with a frazzled look on my face looking at the no knead bread cookbook. So, in an effort to spare y'all a verra, verra long post about the recipe and steps for no-knead bread, I will post a helpful link (or at least I will make a gallant attempt to post a link) at the end of this post because being that I'm a no knead bread novice, I fear that my instructions would only lead to un-risen bread...

I'm sure that no knead bread was originally created by some baker centuries ago who hated having to knead -- that person was probably just as lazy as me and therefore I heart them, but it was Jim Lehay of Sullivan Street Bakery here in New York that rose the bread to popularity mere years ago. Basically, the recipe for his bread was published by the New York Times and lazy people (like me) went crazy. I know that I'm a little late to be trying out the bread just now but I've never been a trend follower. However, when amazaon.ca sent me a helpful email to tell me which books they thought I should buy and Mr. No Knead's came up (the book is called My Bread), I was very excited as clearly there would be scores of recipes to make without kneading and actually there are. However, Mr. No Knead says that you should master the basics first so that's what I have been doing since Sunday. The process of the bread making is simple. Mix your flour, yeast, water and salt together in a bowl and let them get really sticky and gooey before you cover the mixture and let it sit for 18, yes eighteen, hours or so. Then, you take out the rising bread, shape in on a towel doused with flour, let it rise a couple more hours and then awkwardly drop it into a hot dutch oven. Then, bake it at 475 (yes, that high) for about 30 minutes covered with a lid and 10 or so minutes uncovered. Then, you remove the bread and listen to it crackle (it actually creaked and crackled, seriously, I took a video for proof) for an hour on a cooling rack and then enjoy. The bread was really good. It was crusty and yet soft. I say was because it is now gone. We ate it all. In a day. And now, I knead to make more.


The finished product -- No-Knead Number One RIP

Don't forget to check out the link!
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/08/dining/081mrex.html