While visiting the parents this weekend, I had lots of trouble sitting still and not baking. I was perusing their extensive magazine and cookbook selection and came across a new one- My Bread by Jim Lahey. It's relatively new, and so is his technique:
Combine flour, yeast, water. Let rise for 12-18 hours. Poke it a little bit and let rise for 2 hours. Bake for 1 hour.
That's it. Seriously.
It was very yummy bread. Crunchy crust and nice, soft inside. Our only problem was that it was a little bit too sticky and when we tried to transfer the dough from the towel to the pot, a lot of dough got left behind. Now, that may get better with practice, but I think next time I will try parchment paper maybe. See what happens.
In 2006, Mark Bittman wrote about this crazy new technique in the New York Times and included the basic recipe. Read it here. If you're at all interested, it's worth checking out the book (which includes tips, techniques, the basic recipe, and lots of fancier ones) from your local library or even buying it.
I read about this in the Times and didn't believe it! I'll have to give this a try now- thanks for testing!
ReplyDeleteThat looks like it came straight from an italian bread bakery! What a perfect bread for a dinner party. All your baking photos look awesome!
ReplyDeleteI made the bread! It didn't rise very much in the second (2 hr) rise, but I baked it anyway, and it tastes pretty good. The recipe in the NYT did have the disclaimer that some experimentation/practice is helpful. I used your tip about the parchment paper, and next time I'm going to increase the yeast like you did. Thanks for the encouragement to get baking!
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