No-Knead Bread

I've been sitting on this post for a while as Stella has been an absolute bear lately.

Who, me?

I could go on about that but really, it's more of the the same old thing - waaaah, mom won't let me chew on her ratty flip flops; waaaah, I bumped my head yet again; waaaah, I'm stuck under the couch. Anyhoo.

A while ago I came across a recipe for No-Knead Bread on what is probably my favorite cooking blog (it doesn't hurt that her baby is cute as a bug, either). I love artisan bread but it's hard to come by in these parts. This is one of the few things I miss about living in Indiana - lots of yummy baked goods from the Amish farms, not to mention from my friends Nicole and Ed, who built a brick oven in their back yard and made frickin' amazing bread. But I digress. I found this recipe and thought hey, I can handle that. 

The recipe in all its variations is infinitely google-able, and I won't go into the scientific reasons why this bread works and generally turns out awesome, but I will mention a couple of modifications I've tried. For my first loaf of this bread, I substituted whey I had left over from draining yogurt (to make it Greek-style) for the water called for in the recipe. This yielded a very tasty, sourdough-like loaf with a great texture, not to mention lots of added nutrients from the whey.

My second loaf, pictured below, was made with water and to be honest, wasn't as good - the crust was leathery and near-impossible to cut through, and the bread was not as flavorful. I do think the texture was my fault though, as I reduced the oven temperature to 425 to prevent the overbrowning I experienced with my first loaf, and as a result, actually had to bake it for freaking ever to get any browning at all. Had I really thought about it at the time, I would have realized that the first loaf probably browned more due to the milk proteins in the whey. Ah well, lesson learned and the results were still plenty edible. In the future I think I will stick to making this bread with whey as it just tastes better! I think I may try adding some dried herbs next time - how good does rosemary and garlic sound? 

This is the best picture out of the bunch, really? Actually, yeah.

Another recommendation I have for you is to skip the floured towel when shaping the bread. From the many articles I've read, it is damn nigh impossible to not have the bread stick like crazy to the towel. I took the suggestion of using floured parchment paper for this step with my first loaf and it still stuck pretty good, so for my second loaf, I just mixed my ingredients in one bowl, then dumped them into another bowl sprayed with a bit of nonstick spray and covered it. Then when the time came to fold the dough on itself (and later shape it into a ball), I just did it right in the bowl. Easy peasy, no mess and it still turned out pretty good. 

Well, I hear someone stirring so in closing, yay for easy, tasty bread and apologies for my sub-par photography. I'm working with a cheapo camera, poor lighting, and very little time, but I will try for better in the future.

TTFN,

Bonnie

p.s. Gratuitous fat baby feet: 

p.p.s. Next time, a favorite dessert from an unexpected place: our high school lunchroom. Yep.