I love to bake but I am terrible at it. TERRIBLE! I get stressed, I mess up, my recipes all flop. I’ve been working on baking the bread recipes from Adventures In Daily Living. First I tried the egg bread, which was a huge huge failure. I researched Bread Theory (yes, ma’am, there is such a thing) and tried to figure out where I went wrong. No clue. So I tried Applesauce bread tonight with different but just as terrible results.

So this is, like, IT people. No more tries. If this “fail-proof” no-knead, effortless bread recipe does not work, I’m hanging up my bread-baking apron.

So what is no-knead bread? Well the NYT printed this recipe last year when we were in Vietnam. I didn’t know about it then - I was a little busy with other things in life! But I heard about it recently and thought “THIS is the bread recipe for me. No kneading, no bread machine, no Kitchen Aid, no FAIL!”. So here I go, and ya’ll get to follow along with my photographic pictorial.

Go ahead, lay odds. I don’t mind.

7:20 PM: Dinner is done and it’s time to start tomorrow’s bread. I gather the ingredients, the bowl, etc. I throw all three ingredients into the bowl:

That would be 3 C flour, 1.5 t salt and 1/4 t yeast.

Next add 1.5 C water and stir to combine:

This is supposed to make a sludgey sticky mess. Some say it looks like a thick pancake batter. Mine looks more like my regular ole bread dough. Hrm. Already I’m afraid!

7:30 PM: Smack on some plastic wrap and set it somewhere for the next 12-18 hours. I’ll shoot for 18 hours. See ya at 1:30 PM tomorrow!

1:30 PM: Happy Friday! Time to check on our bread. It is supposed to be “dotted with bubbles”. Does this look dotted to you? Maybe not? That’s what I thought. I dunno:

I flop it out onto my floured cutting board and fold it over onto itself a few times:

Then I cover it loosely with plastic wrap and let it rest for 15 minutes. Just long enough to clean up the spilled flour on the floor, pee and update my blog

1:45 PM: Flour up thy hands, turn that dough into a ball. Plop it down onto my well-floured cotton towel (recipe says “seam side down” which means what? Where in the world is the SEAM Of a ball of dough?!?), flour the top of the ball, throw on another towel and let it rest 2 hours. You might notice my ball does not hold ball shape. Is this bad?

Resting dough:

See you at 3:45 PM for our final steps!

3:45 PM I check on the bread. It is supposed to have doubled in size and not readily spring back when poked. It doesn’t really spring back when poked, but it doesn’t look double in size.

See the finger poke indentation?

At this point I show my baking prowess by forgetting to preheat the oven. So I decide it can’t hurt to let the bread rest a bit longer while the oven heats. I throw in my big bread oven and let it get to work while I update here

Luckily my oven warms up with the quickness. I decide to cook my bread at 475. The recipe calls for 450 with an editorial note that 500 works too. I go for the middle ground.

Here’s the bread in the bread-oven (aka the big white pot). See all the lovely baked on non-stick spray from last failed bread disaster? It is there as an ugly reminder of what lies ahead:

4:10 PM The Bread is in the oven. You’ll notice my oven door is newly coated in flour. Isn’t that nice? Because I couldn’t possibly transfer the bread to the pot without coating the entire inside of the oven with flour, right?

And now she bakes for half an hour.

4:40 PM: Half hour is up! Time to peak at the bread! It looks dark, and not real big. Maybe it’s supposed to look like this? I’m suddenly regreting not baking it at 450. Still I remove the lid, per instructions, and bake another 15 minutes. We’ll see……

5:00 PM: So my here’s the final product:

As you can see, the crust is just way too thick and overcooked, I could hardly cut through it hot which means once it cools, it will be a rock. The bread, itself, seems to have an ok consistency. Hard to tell when it is piping hot. And unfortunately I don’t think I’ll EVER be able to test it because of the crust.

soooooo…..back to the drawing board!!!!! I have managed to fail to bake even the most simple of all bread recipes! Haha

Postscript: Now that the bread is cool, it is quite lovely and perfect and yummy on the inside. If anyone has any suggestions on ways to try this recipe that won’t result in the ridiculously overcooked and thick crust, let me know! Can I put it in a loaf pan instead? Turn down the heat? How much?

This entry was posted on Friday, July 6th, 2007 at 5:00 pm and is filed under House Keeping, Photos & Videos. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.