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Tuesday, January 01, 2008

 
5:32 PM: no fuss, no muss [#] [0]

happy new year! it's nice to start off with a new foodstuff. :)

i finally tried making the no-knead bread and i gotta say, it's as good as the hype. i'm a lazy, imprecise baker, so i'm thrilled this bread is drop-dead simple & very forgiving: you combine flour, water, salt & yeast (i just used a packet that had been sitting in our refrigerator for god know how long), let it sit on the counter for at least 12 hours (that's all i could stand), fold it in on itself, wait another 2 hours, and pop it into a very hot oven in a pre-warmed container. it took me a while to get to this because we don't have an enameled casserole, cast iron pot or dutch oven, much less a 5-quart one, which is what the recipe recommends. but then i saw you could do it in a pyrex bowl, and we have plenty of those!

i did this while i was waiting for dawn this morning, which is my new year's tradition. i started the process in the afternoon which meant it was ready to be attended to around 3:30 this morning. but if you start one in the evening, it'll be almost ready by the time you get up in the morning!

i halved the recipe because ordinarily we're not big bread eaters and i was afraid our 1.5 quart pyrex bowl would be too small for a full-sized loaf (which it probably was, but i'm pleased it was just the right size for this loaf). it smelled heavenly and it slipped out of the bowl easily. the hardest part was waiting for it to cool, so i went for my new year's walk at dawn and had two slices when i got back. delicious!