FishingBanter - View Single Post - OT No-knead bread

**Kevin Vang** · November 20th, 2006, 06:17 PM posted to rec.outdoors.fishing.fly

In article ,
says...
Anybody else try it yet ?

I did. Well, sort of, anyway.

We had a sourdough starter sitting dormant in the fridge, and it needed
rousing so we can make a few loaves to take along to Thanksgiving dinner
this week. So, Saturday afternoon, I started up a sponge (2 cups
sourdough starter, 2 cups flour, 2 cups water) and let it set out on
the counter in a larger ceramic bowl overnight.

Sunday at noon, I made the dough (the sponge, about 2 Tbspn Kosher salt,
2 more cups of flour plus another cup of flour for kneading) which I
kneaded by hand for about 10 minutes or so. I tried to keep it fairly
moist and sticky. Let this rise until the Vikings game was over.
(Speaking of which, before the season, I prognosticated that the Vikes
would do well to finish 8-8 this year, and they seem bent on proving
that they can fail to live up to even modest expectations...)

Then I punched the dough down, divided it into halves, and formed two
round loaves, which I then let rise for another 2 hours. When I pre-
heated the oven, I found that my baking stone and my Lodge 6 qt. cast
iron pot just fit side by side on the oven rack, so as a controlled
experiment, I baked one loaf on the stone the way I usually do, and one
loaf in the cast iron pot, as per the NYT recipe.

Speaking of which, if you are going to get serious about baking bread
(and pizza!) you really need a stone, but you don't need to spend a lot
of money on one. Just go to your local building center, and get any
smooth surfaced stone or ceramic tiles, enough to cover most of one oven
rack with a few inches to spare around the outside to leave room for air
circulation. The thicker the tiles, the better. Then just leave them
there forever. Seriously, never take them out. The additional thermal
mass will help your oven maintain a constant temperature, especially if
you are the kind of guy who likes to open the door and peek a lot. You
might even want a second layer of tiles to put on the bottom of the
oven.

So anyway, I slashed a big X in the loaves with a serrated knife to
help let the steam out, baked them for about a half hour, at which point
I removed the lid from the pot. The loaf on the stone was nearly done,
but the one in the pot was pretty pale yet. I removed the loaf on the
stone about ten minutes later, but the other one took about another half
hour.

At this point, the whole house smelled heavenly, so the whole family
was clamoring to sample them. I cut off one slice from each loaf per
person, and the consensus was, well, um,... not much difference. I
would say that the loaf that started in the pot had a slightly crunchier
crust. It was also a little flatter, but that was because it was harder
(read: I was klutzier) to transfer the loaf into the pot, so it deflated
a little from handling.

Follow-up testing will be conducted the minute I get home from work
today.

Kevin