Bread without knead
Julia Child achieved the perfect crust via a brick containing asbestos. Thankfully, there’s another way, writes Becky Krystal.
One of my favourite Julia Child anecdotes involves her epic quest to achieve a perfectly baked French baguette in a home oven. It took a year to accomplish, but in her trademark doggedness, with help from her husband and others, she did it.
An important part of achieving an authentic bread: the crust. And key to that was figuring out how to replicate the heat and steam of a professional oven.
The answer, as recalled in Bob Spitz’s 2012 biography of the trailblazing cookbook author and television host, lay in lining the oven with quarry tiles and dropping a hot brick in a pan of water.
Thankfully, we don’t have to go to the lengths Child did to get a good crust – not least because the bricks she and husband Paul used contained asbestos. Instead, the answer lies in a common piece of kitchen equipment: a pot, ideally a Dutch oven. Yes, if your prestige piece of enamelled cast-iron isn’t getting as much use as you think it should, now is the time to pull it out for some of the crustiest bread you’ve ever had.
I turned to Jim Lahey, the New York baker and cookbook author who helped turn no-knead bread into a mainstream concept.
My first loaf was superb. My second, third, fourth and fifth loaves were just as wonderful. One of the star attractions was the crusty crust. The oven within the oven makes all the difference.
You preheat the Dutch oven for about half an hour before baking, so it’s screaming hot by the time you gently dump the dough in. It’s so hot you can actually hear the dough start cooking when it hits the pot.
You’re also going to start generating steam almost immediately, which you seal in by putting the lid on. That environment is what gets you the kind of crust you would only expect from an artisan bakery. 10-12 servings; makes one large loaf
Make ahead:
The dough needs to rest and rise twice; first for 12- to 18 hours and, after it’s shaped, for 1- to 2 hours (all at room temperature).
300g (2 cups) bread flour, plus more for the work surface
100g cup) wholegrain flour
1 teaspoons salt (table)
teaspoon dried instant yeast
1 cups cool water
Wheat bran or cornmeal, for dusting (may use additional flour)
Stir together the flours, salt and yeast in a medium bowl. Add the water. Use a wooden spoon or your hands to mix until you have a wet, sticky dough, about 30 seconds.
Cover the bowl and let the mixture sit at room temperature until its surface is dotted with bubbles and the dough has more than doubled in size, 12- to 18 hours.
Generously dust a work surface with flour. Use a rubber spatula or lightly floured hands to scrape the dough on to the surface in one piece.
Use your lightly floured hands to lift the edges of the dough up and in towards the centre. Gently pinch the pulled-up dough together, cupping the edges in your hands as needed to nudge it into a round.
Place a clean tea towel on your work surface and generously dust the towel with wheat bran, cornmeal or flour. Gently place the dough on the towel, seam side down. If the dough feels sticky, dust the top lightly with more wheat bran, cornmeal or flour. Fold the ends of the towel loosely over the dough to cover it. Place the dough in a warm, draught-free spot to rise for one to two hours.
The dough is ready when it has almost doubled in size. When you gently poke the dough with your finger, it should hold the impression. If it springs back, let it rise for an additional 15 minutes.
About half an hour before you think the second rise is complete, position a rack in the lower third of the oven and place your Dutch oven or pot with a lid in the centre of the rack. Preheat to 240 degrees Celsius.
Use oven gloves to carefully remove the preheated pot, then lift off the lid. Uncover the dough. Quickly but gently invert it off the towel and into the pot, seam side up. Cover with the lid and bake for 30 minutes. Remove the lid and continue baking until the loaf is a deep chestnut colour but not burned, 15- to 30 minutes.
Use a heatproof spatula or oven gloves to carefully lift the bread out of the pot and cool on a rack thoroughly before serving. – Washington Post
Adapted from My Bread: The Revolutionary No-Work, No-Knead Method, by Jim Lahey (W W Norton, 2009), as posted on LeitesCulinaria.com