2.13.2010

bohobe.

i am still coming to grips with the fact that i am a capable cook. i did not grow up in the kitchen. well actually, that's not true. i DID grow up in the kitchen, but i was stealing cookies, not cooking. in the last few years i have not only become comfortable in the kitchen, i have actually become obsessive. pair that with a desire to do less shopping and suddenly i find myself baking our daily bread. whaaaaat?!?! yup-a-roni. like my current shopping reductions it all started during my peace corps service, where i learned how to bake bread on the stovetop. this education was strengthened by my peace corps mom. she quickly seized on my clay wedging skills, transferring them to kneading bread dough. in the process, she also taught me how to make bread in the oven. so now, armed with my limited bread making experience and my overzealous kitchen confidence i decided it was high time i start baking bread. after all, how hard could it be?

i did a little internet searching and found the ny times no-knead bread recipe that was supposed to be foolproof. it was. the first time. the loaf turned out so lovely it was featured in a january post. the second  attempt resulted in a gooey sticky mess that refused to do anything it was supposed to do. i chalked that up to letting the dough sit with a lid over the bowl rather than the requisite plastic wrap. fine fine. as it was an unrecoverable failure i dumped it in the garbage with little fanfare. bye bye yucky dough. after having discovered my plastic wrap "mistake" i confidently started on attempt three. twenty hours later i discover that it too failed. foolproof? either i am a fool, which is certainly possible, or this recipe is not proofed. with a bit of research i have come to the conclusion that my use of bread flour was likely my downfall - apparently when a recipe says "all-purpose flour", you are supposed to actually USE all-purpose flour. right then, no bread flour when making bread. huh? well that makes no sense. i need a recipe that fits in to my logic-based world. after some more internet searching, i opted for a lovely beginner's bread recipe. it does require kneading, but i find this to be a relaxing process. the bonus is that from start to finish only takes about 3 hours. not bad for homemade bread. after three successful loaves of bread, i think this is the recipe for me. i am not yet exactly sure about the economics behind it all, but it seems that i will be able to extract six loaves of bread from a bag of flour, so no matter how you slice it, there is a whole lotta money savings going on. better yet, we are eating good in this neighborhood.

5 comments:

  1. We just made the no-knead recipe with bread flour and it turned out GREAT! Will always use bread flour instead of AP. But it is harder to work with. I have a feeling your gooey sticky messes would have turned out fine. Just plop the entire mess in the dutch oven, give it a shake, and pop it in the oven. It'll come together as it bakes. The extra gluten makes the dough stickier and more airy (and more difficult) but I think the crumb and crust from using bread flour is worth it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. yeah, to second that... when Todd made the no-knead recipe with bread flour it was AMAZING. Even though the first batch (with AP flour) was super tasty, the bread-flour batch was incredible, & totally like those really fancy artisan loafs you can pay lots of money for at the swanky grocery stores. Of course, I just got to enjoy the end product... I didn't have to deal with the sticky mess along the way. But isn't home-made bread just perfectly scrumptious?

    ReplyDelete
  3. after dumping the first gooey attempt, i decided that maybe i was not giving the dough a fair chance, so i baked the second messy goo and sadly, it was not the gorgeous loaf we got during our first experience. i haven't figured out what went wrong, especially now that you are telling me it probably wasn't the flour.

    after the 20 hour "rise" it looked super, but then i realized that was only the top, because under that there was about a cup of water. i was not sure how to deal with the water when i dumped the dough onto the cutting board. for now we are working with the traditional recipe, but i will have to try the ny times one again, because i love that kind of bread.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Wow. The water thing is really strange. If anything I usually get a surplus of flour left over.

    ReplyDelete
  5. interesting. i am wondering if my bowl was in a spot that wasn't warm enough...what do you think? i know that affects regular bread recipes, but i don't know about this one. i will have to try the bread again after we finish today's loaf, because i really love the artisan-style bread. so many lovely crannies to hold my honey and jam.

    ReplyDelete