No Knead Bread

[zakelwe]

I hope I have spelt that right or else you will be thinking I don't need any bread rather than I can make bread without muscles like Chuck Norris.

Right, you may know me from such adventures as putting your dough in the fridge for 3 days to let it rise before cooking it in a frying pan

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a... to make a home made proper pizza

and also from .. MY WIFES BREADMAKING MACHINE TOOK OVER THE WORLD



but for my next trick no knead bread. Yep just throw it all together and let it do it's thing. According to the internet works a treat. According to what has happened so far things are not looking too good.

The basic idea is you cook it in a Dutch Oven (no sniggering at the back please) and this smaller volume and enclosed pot gives it a double whammy and pops it up. However before that your bread should have risen which does the "kneading" in this case.

Mine hasn't. I let it rise for 12 hours at room temp and then 2 days in the fridge and rather than Dirk Diggly or John Holmes it's more like me on a Friday night after too many beers whilst searching the PH classified for a car I can never afford and I am just kidding myself.

I'll go and take a pic, back soon. This is real life drama unfolding. OK, it's not the Olympics, but you have at least got a ticket for this and it has cost you nowt. I may be in for the high jump if this doesn't work out though.

Andy

[uncinqsix]

There's a happy medium between "No Knead" and kneaded bread. It essentially involves a series of 10-20 second kneads spread out over a couple of hours (pretty much intervals of 10min - 10min - 10min - 10min - 30min - 1 hr). Works very well indeed, and is the method used by one of the world's top bakers, Dan Lepard.

Get a copy of Dan's book, The Handmade Loaf, and prepare for your breadmaking to change forever.

Here's a sourdough made using his method:

[zakelwe]

Very nice result indeed!

However it begs the question what would it be like if you kneaded for 1 minute at those time intervals or 3 seconds? Or just do it for 10 mins at the start like normal?

Having said that my no knead is not looking too good currently. The Dutch oven which is actually a chip pan got heated up



and my very sad offering to the God's of no knead going into it



I'd like everyone to start praying or at least make a quick one of these



and throw it to a local volcano as a sacrifice to apease the Gods.

Andy

[zakelwe]

OK so here we have it



Now will it be like this inside

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQBFhaRFPIk

or rather this inside

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9C62Hco9TeE

Andy

[calibrax]

As it doesn't appear to have changed in size... I'm going with the concrete!

[Mobile Chicane]

uncinqsix said:

There's a happy medium between "No Knead" and kneaded bread. It essentially involves a series of 10-20 second kneads spread out over a couple of hours (pretty much intervals of 10min - 10min - 10min - 10min - 30min - 1 hr). Works very well indeed, and is the method used by one of the world's top bakers, Dan Lepard.

Get a copy of Dan's book, The Handmade Loaf, and prepare for your breadmaking to change forever.

Here's a sourdough made using his method:

Ordered. Thanks

[uncinqsix]

zakelwe said:

However it begs the question what would it be like if you kneaded for 1 minute at those time intervals or 3 seconds? Or just do it for 10 mins at the start like normal?

It's the intervals that are important. Leaving the dough to its own devices has the same effect as kneading as it allows the gluten to develop. The occasional short kneads stretch the gluten more and keep everything nice and even. 3 second kneads wouldn't really be enough time to even the dough out. 1 minute wouldn't have any adverse effect, but is more work than you need to do, although if you did 1 minute kneads you wouldn't need so much of the resting time in between. The 10 minute knead would have a very similar effect again, but I don't think it works quite as well for allowing nice big bubbles to develop - it's a subtle difference though. Takes a lot more effort too...

The dough isn't particularly fussy. Provided it gets either enough kneading, resting or a combination of both, it will work just fine.

[Simpo Two]

zakelwe said:

OK so here we have it

Hey, you made unleavened bread. People will pay good money for that

[21TonyK]

If you saw Richard Bertinet on Saturday Kitchen he advocated giving the dough a thorough bashing rather than traditional kneeding. Tried it the other day. Much quicker and less laborious. Also interesting the high % water he used, again it works pretty well. I don't make bread very often but having seen his quick, no nonsense approach it makes it a lot more viable.

In summary, 500g strong flour, 10g fresh yeast, 10g salt (I use 7g) and 350g warm water. Mix it all up into a very sticky lump, bash it about for a few minutes. Leave to rise for an hour (I use the oven set to 50 with the door slightly open. Very gently scrape from the bowl onto a lightly floured surface and shape. I then let this rest for half an hour to rise a little further. Then back into a preheated oven on max (250 for me) and 15 minutes later...



Not perfect but suprisingly good for the lack of effort. Texture and taste was right but a domestic oven isn't really going to get hot enough. The bottom of the larger loaf (cut one) was a bit dense. Using a pizza stone as they did on telly would really help.

[Mobile Chicane]

Looks good Tony!

Meanwhile, my copy of The Handmade Loaf arrived today and I don't know which to try first.

Sour dough is slooooooooow baking (6 days in all) but the flavour of a home-made loaf is incomparable. Poilâne is similar but costs £7 a loaf

[21TonyK]

Just ordered some bread improver. Might try it with some herb breads before the weekend.

[zakelwe]

calibrax said:

As it doesn't appear to have changed in size... I'm going with the concrete!

Bit of a long delay to get back to this thread but you were spot on, what a load of rubbish. People don't knead bread, or bash it in Tony's case, for nothing.

All was not lost, I cut it into cubes and mixed with garlic and herbs and baked in the oven to make lovely croutons.

Andy

[Cotty]

21TonyK said:

.

That middle one with the holes looks great. Just need to dips to go with it
Tear a bit off and dunk it

[uncinqsix]

Mobile Chicane said:

Looks good Tony!

Meanwhile, my copy of The Handmade Loaf arrived today and I don't know which to try first.

Sour dough is slooooooooow baking (6 days in all) but the flavour of a home-made loaf is incomparable. Poilâne is similar but costs £7 a loaf

The first thing to do is get your sourdough starter going. Once it's done it's done - mine has been going for about 3 years now. In the mean time, try one of the simple yeasted white breads just to get a feel for the minimal knead techniques.

Enjoy and post pics.

[Mobile Chicane]

uncinqsix said:

Mobile Chicane said:

Looks good Tony!

Meanwhile, my copy of The Handmade Loaf arrived today and I don't know which to try first.

Sour dough is slooooooooow baking (6 days in all) but the flavour of a home-made loaf is incomparable. Poilâne is similar but costs £7 a loaf

The first thing to do is get your sourdough starter going. Once it's done it's done - mine has been going for about 3 years now. In the mean time, try one of the simple yeasted white breads just to get a feel for the minimal knead techniques.

Enjoy and post pics.

That was the first thing I did when I got back from the shops yesterday with 6Kg of various flours and grains, plus mouse-proof storage containers, an oven thermometer and a baking stone. (Heavy, that lot.)

Sunday will be Baking Day.