newsflash: I’m a bit of a moron
August 4, 2007 at 10:33 am | In Uncategorized |I know why the other day’s pomegranate and chocolate cupcakes were so dense: I used bread flour instead of all-purpose. D’OH! I keep both in fairly similar boxes and of course, it’s not like they’re very distinctive from each other seeing as how they’re both white. and flour-ish. blah.
Jim Lahey’s No-Knead Bread
Yields one 1 1/2 pound loaf
[ingredients adapted to how I made my own loaf]
1 1/2 cups bread flour
1/2 cup dark rye flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
4 t vital wheat gluten
1/4 t instant yeast
1 1/4 t sea salt
wheat bran, for dusting
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 sidedown 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.
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Nice bread recipe :)
As for the flour thing, it happens to us all !
Comment by JudyMac — August 4, 2007 #
Your bread always looks amazing, Celine! I think I’m going to try to start baking my own bread, it looks so rewarding. Do you think I could use bread machine yeast in place of instant yeast?
Comment by Ash — August 4, 2007 #
definitely, Ash! it’s basically the same anyway. and it’s what I used too. :D
thank you Judy, it’s a relief to see I’m not the only one who isn’t always the most efficient when it comes to, say, waking up? ;p
Comment by Celine — August 5, 2007 #
You’re no moron, Celine! Half the time when I’m using gluten, I have to wet a little and make sure it gets stingy and it really is gluten! I should really just label my containers…
Sigh…I wish I baked more bread!
Comment by bazu — August 5, 2007 #
worst part is, Bazu? I actually labeled my flour containers! I’m hopeless. bake more bread!
Comment by Celine — August 5, 2007 #
you are far from a moron, Celine - believe me, I have some horror stories from the past involving misread ingredient amounts and other completely moronic incidents. I prefer to protect my ego and not share these events at the moment, haha :0)
on another note, I finally got around to browsing through your entire recipe index, and have already bookmarked SEVERAL recipes that I want to try. when is your cookzine coming out, and how/when can I purchase a copy??
Comment by VeggieGirl — August 5, 2007 #
pretty pretty bread, and that soup looks awesome, too! please do post the recipe, i would love to try it.
Comment by textual bulldog — August 6, 2007 #
ha, VG! I hear you. and I’ll respect your wanting to keep it all private. I’m not mentioning everything that goes wrong in my kitchen either, for fear of losing any sort of what little credibility I have now. ;p
I have no idea when the zine will be out since a lot of things are happening over here, I was shooting for mid-September but I’m not sure it’s gonna happen at this time now. which is sort of a good thing after all, since so many [great] cookbooks are coming out at the end of the year, I’m sure people are starting to get tired of having to fork out so much money on recipe stuff!
thank you TB, I just posted the shoup recipe. it’s so simple it’s almost embarrassing that I did. ;p
Comment by Celine — August 6, 2007 #
[...] 09Aug07 …could be even better than the more well-known no-knead bread everyone [including myself] has been talking about? if you have “Vegan Vittles” by Jo Stepaniak, you have got to [...]
Pingback by who woulda thunk a no-knead bread… « have cake, will travel! — August 9, 2007 #