I found a new (well, new to me) method of baking yeast bread in this month’s Mother Earth News. The theory is that you can mix up a batch of the dough–without doing any heavy duty kneading–refrigerate it, and have it ready to bake in no time flat. This sounded like a great way to have fresh-baked bread on demand and a lot easier on an over-worked girl who doesn’t have much time at home to let bread dough sit and rise. I followed the instructions provided in the article, which appear to be a condensed version of the method outlined more fully in Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois’s book, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. I started the process on a Sunday afternoon, mixing the flour, salt, yeast, and water just until the dough clung together. I placed the dough in a plastic tub and let it rise at room temperature for 2 hours and then placed it in the refrigerator for an overnight proofing. The next day, I pulled it out, tore off a quarter of the dough, shaped it into a ball and let it warm to room temperature (about 40 minutes). In the meantime, I heated my oven to 450 degrees, placed a pizza stone on the top rack and a glass baking dish on the bottom one (to later fill with boiling water to create steam).
All progressed well at first. The bread warmed up to room temperature and rose a little more. It looked just like a loaf that had been created using a traditional kneading method. I placed the loaf on the pizza stone and poured boiling water into the pan below. That’s when WWIII ignited in my oven.
DON’T EVER POUR BOILING WATER INTO A GLASS BAKING DISH WARMED TO 450 DEGREES!!!
The glass shattered instantly and fell to the bottom of the oven. Luckily it didn’t explode but rather just shattered and fell straight down. I picked up the larger pieces and evaluated the bread. The dough still looked good and more importantly, glass free. I scrounged around for a metal pan and came up with a cast iron skillet. I put that on the bottom rack, filled it with boiling water, and closed the door.
Wooh. It seems like I should have known that glass wouldn’t have held up to that temperature but obviously I didn’t. I had some misgivings when I stuck the pan in the oven but it was the easiest dish to reach. Lesson learned.
Thirty minutes later I pulled the brown loaf out of the oven. Inspected it again for glass (free–thank goodness) and then discovered that my pizza stone had cracked in half. I guess that initial burst of steam had been a doozy. The cast iron skillet wasn’t looking so good now, either.
I sliced the bread after it had cooled, slathered on some butter, and took a bite. A very good bread and certainly not a lot of (bread-making) trouble. If I could work out the rest of the procedure, I’d be set. I did some digging and found a podcast by America’s Test Kitchen (Called N0-Knead 2.0) where they take on this no-knead dough process.
no-knead bread
America’s Test Kitchen’s podcast recommends several add-ons to the basic one that I followed. For example, they recommend baking the bread in a dutch oven to trap steam. That trapped steam creates a beautifully browned crust. Also, the Test Kitchen recommends kneading the dough 10 to 15 times, adding 1 tsp white vinegar, and 2 tsp beer. The full recipe can be obtained from cooksillustrated.com/podcast
I haven’t tried the Test Kitchen recipe yet, but I did repeat the basic recipe with the dough I had leftover. This time I used a regular metal pan for my steam-generator–without incident. The bread was good, and I loved that I had a loaf on the table in the same amount of time that it took me to prepare spaghetti and meatballs. I felt a lot better about the bread I served my family, especially since I’d normally have heated up one of those high-fat frozen loafs so easily obtained in the grocery store.
the cracked pizza stone
