Thursday, August 5, 2010

The Bread





A good loaf of bread is like heaven....today I received a gift of loaf of freshly baked bread from my friend Anya.  She makes this bread weekly, and this week she made an extra thus I was the lucky one to receive.




Beautiful texture, chewiness, great flavor with right amount of salt.  Samad and I had a late night snack of it.  I ate mine with almond butter and strawberry jam.  Samad had his plain...saying a great bread doesn't need anything else.












This is the "No Knead Bread" that I've mentioned here.  I tried making this myself but mine didn't have the right flavor and the softness Anya's had.  I blamed in on the cold weathers and using a metal bowl.  I'll have to try again.  Here is the recipe below which is from NYC times link.  



Adapted from Jim Lahey, Sullivan Street Bakery
Time: About 1½ hours plus 14 to 20 hours’ rising

3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting
¼ teaspoon instant yeast
1¼ teaspoons salt
Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed.
1. In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 5/8 cups water, 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. 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. 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. 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.

Thanks Anya!

2 comments:

  1. OMG, I can't believe you blogged about the bread! Thank you :)! Glad you guys liked it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Soung is inspired now and she is going to try and make this bread.

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...