No-Knead Bread Again and Again

As I've said before, Jim Lahey's formula for no-knead bread has changed the bread baking landscape for the home baker.
For me, and for a lot of other bakers, the most difficult procedure is getting the dough into the hot Dutch oven without suffering a third degree burn.
I've been experimenting with a different method of getting the dough into the Dutch oven, and it's been working fine.
To make a 1 kilo (a magic weight for me) loaf:

5 cups unbleached white flour

2 teaspoons salt

3/8 teaspoon active dry yeast

2 1/2 cups water

I'm assuming everyone knows the basic method of preparing the dough (I've gone over it previously on this blog) so I won't repeat it again.

 Risen dough

On day #2 loosen the dough from around the edge of the bowl, and as you do this, add flour around the gap you're temporarily creating. This makes it easier to release the dough into the oven.

 Creating gap for extra flour

Preheat the oven with the Dutch oven inside at 500ºF. for 30 minutes.
Remove Dutch oven and add cornmeal to bottom.
Using your dough scraper to assist, dump dough into Dutch oven to bake.

 Turning dough into Dutch oven

Dough in Dutch oven

(The dough never touches the counter, nor does it go onto a cloth or into a basket)

Bake 30 minutes with cover on at 500ºF.
Bake 15 minutes with cover on at 450ºF.
Bake 15 minutes with cover off at 450ºF.

 Baked loaf

If your loaves are burning on the bottom or become rock hard on the bottom, then you need some insulation. Add extra cornmeal or, as I do, put an insulated baking sheet on a low rack to deflect heat.

Log Cabin Chronicles

 Hi
A friend just mailed me a link to this website, and I wanted to share it with you. I found the oven described to be very interesting because it apparently bakes decent bread and yet it's an oven that I would never build. Aside from the complexity of the construction, lack of insulation and overly large oven opening, the oven does work. I guess it's really pretty hard to achieve a failure. 
Don't agonize over your oven design. Build a small oven first, and if you make it out of mud, then it won't cost very much. You could always tear it down and build another if it doesn't please you.  
Stu



Log Cabin Chronicles

Jane Goyette tending her 25-loaf wood-fired bread oven
at Hogwallow Farm in Fool's Hollow, Quebec
How To Build
a Wood-Fired Oven
& Start a Home Bakery

Being a Tried & True Method
of Dealing With the Reality
of Getting Together our Daily Bread
(and Having Some Extra Loaves to Sell)

Same Day Sourdough Pancakes

SAME DAY PANCAKES

If you've been feeding your starter like you're supposed to, and you're not discarding the excess, then eventually you'll have room for nothing in your refrigerator except starter. What you can do is to make sourdough pancakes with your growing sourdough culture. To make the pancakes without any advance planning, here's what you need:

active sourdough culture

 
1 cup cold starter
1 beaten egg
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking soda dissolved in 1 tablespoon water
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon oil or melted butter
Yield: 8-5” pancakes

Here's how:
In a bowl incorporate all the ingredients except the baking soda. Dissolve the baking soda in one tablespoon of water in a separate container (it takes about two seconds). Add the dissolved baking soda after you’ve mixed up the batter, and now, mix it up again.
If your starter is very thick, then you may need to add a little liquid (water/milk/buttermilk) to the batter to get the right consistency.
Not too thick/not too thin.
Wait a couple of minutes to allow the batter to start bubbling before you start making the pancakes.
Grease the griddle with a little butter.
A ¼ cup measuring cup is handy for scooping out the batter. You can expect the pancakes to be simply great.

Sourdough Pancakes

Starting three stone fire

Let’s say you’re planning to make no-knead sourdough bread and after your dough has been proofing overnight, you change your mind and decide to make sourdough pancakes instead. Well, no problem.
Yield: approximately 18-5” pancakes
First, let’s review the ingredients for one loaf of sourdough bread:
1 ½ cups water
¼ cup starter
1 ¼ teaspoons salt
2 cups white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour.
Stir down your sourdough mixture.
In a separate bowl, combine
¾ cup of water or milk or 1 cup of buttermilk
1 beaten egg
2 tablespoons raw or brown sugar
1 tablespoon melted butter or oil
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
Add this mixture to your bowl of sourdough. If your batter is too thin, then add a little flour. If it’s too thick, then add a little liquid. Don’t worry about a few small lumps.
Grease your skillet with butter or oil over your three stone fire. Pour on the batter.  A quarter cup measure is about right. If you’re not exactly into three stone fires, then you can make these pancakes on your conventional stove indoors.
When they’re done, you know what to put on top.

   

Sourdough Starter

Healthy Starter

Just before leaving for Guatemala, I needed to feed my starter, and knowing that I'd be gone ten days, I gave her extra food. This turned out to be an error. It makes no sense to force feed a starter. I wasn't making foie gras. A starter can handle just a certain amount of food at a time, and when I returned home, my starter was dense, heavy and smelling alcoholic. Not good. Now I am nursing her back to a healthy condition. It's better to enlist the support of someone you can really trust to care for your starter while you're away.

Stu

Guatemala

Hi Everybody
I just returned from another successful stove building trip to Guatemala with Masons On A Mission
Most of the Guatemalans are still preparing food over a three stove fire that is not properly vented. The result is unnecessary respiratory problems. You can see the smoky environment from the photo below.

Just about everyone in the countryside burns wood for cooking purposes, and here in Guatemala, you don't exactly call up your wood broker and have him deliver several cord at once.

 

Our stove building team of four was able to construct five energy efficient stoves in five days to the delight of the families receiving them. Nancy and Louisa are seen here performing the dusty job of cutting and rasping bricks.

 

 Richard starts to assemble stove

And once again I attempted to make tortillas with the women, and they had a good time watching me fail.

 Maya family with new stove

Kids look on

Demand Publishing

Demand Publishing. Yes, I’m sold on it, although my first two books, BREAD IN TIME and BREAD ON EARTH were first published by a small publisher, I really prefer the new technology. Sure, it’s nice having someone publish a book for you, but you really lose a lot of control. Once you ship your manuscript off, you generally have little say about layout, design, editing and distribution. You also make very little money after copies are sold, and generally you don’t get anything until the publisher recaptures his expenses. We all can’t be Stephen King or Steig Larsson.
With demand publishing, you have absolute total control of your work. You decide what the book will be about, and then you write it. Or if you’re really crazy, you can decide what it’s about after you write it. Photos and illustrations are yours to add, and that includes the front and back covers. Also, you choose the size of the book, hard or soft cover, the layout, and all the other decisions it takes to bring about the reality of your book.
One very important consideration is that you don’t have to pay out one penny to do your book, but you do need lots of time. If you feel that your time is worth something, then maybe you shouldn’t be writing a book. You just can’t count the hours it takes to write a book, rather, if you can, allow yourself to be consumed by your project. And don’t expect to make a lot of money. If that’s your goal, then I suggest Wall Street or the banking industry.
Another thing that really appeals to me about demand publishing is the fact that your book doesn’t even exist in a solid reality. It appears to hover in the electronic ether and only comes to hard core existence when someone clicks on the purchase or download button.
For me, I decided to write BREAD EARTH and FIRE without even thinking about publication. I knew beforehand that I was going with demand publishing, and that I found to be highly liberating. I was done searching around for a publisher; I did not enjoy the process. Besides, there may not have been anyone who would publish the book, and I wasn’t about to bang on doors.
You might say that now, since it’s so easy to publish a book, there must be a lot of stuff out there that you would find not only unreadable, but that you would have no interest in. I would totally agree with that statement, but also consider what it’s like to browse a bookstore or video rental store. What percentage of what you see are you really interested in? For example, have you looked in the cooking section of large bookstores recently? The books seem to be getting bigger and more garish. Most attempt to tell you how to bake bread and cook great meals in less than five minutes a day. Is this what it’s really about?
If demand publishing is something you’ve considered, but need a little help, then feel free to send me an email.
Stu

"There's No Success Like Failure"

It has been my experience that to excel in just about anything, I have to take big chances. In reference to baking, I don’t accept anyone’s gospel on how to do something. For example, once I spent a lot of time on a bread recipe from the New York Times, only to discover that the proportions stated were not right, and important explanations were omitted. Only after putting the recipe aside and following my own instincts was I able to achieve what I was looking for. 
Be aware that It’s almost hopeless to measure flour accurately if you're scooping it. Either weigh it, or better still, let your experience dictate when enough is enough. It’s okay to use too much, and it’s okay to use not enough. The third time you’ll probably get it right.
I need to take things to the limit and then beyond to really understand their properties. You really won’t know how much salt to use until you use too much or not enough. And how much sourdough starter do you need to leaven one loaf of bread? Is it ¼ cup, ½ cup or 1 cup?
When building earth ovens should I use 1,2 or 3 parts sand to 1 part clay? I only really know, and then maybe, when I’ve experimented with lots of combinations and gone beyond accepted practices. I know I learn more from my failures than my successes. Of course, Bob Dylan had it right when he sang “there’s no success like failure and failure is no success at all.”
Be outrageous at least some of the time. Well, maybe more of the time. Don’t search for a niche. Be all over the place. If I think I’ve “arrived,”Then what’s next? Now there is nowhere to go, and I’ve stopped developing. It is the lure of unexplored territory that harbors the most rewards for me.

Bread baking in Uzbekistan

Roy Feihel sent me this wonderful video of bread baking in Uzbekistan. The video clearly depicts baking in the traditional tandoor. The men do the physical baking while the women sit on the floor indoors preparing the dough. Note the electronic scale.

Bev's Oven

Bev's Oven

Nicely textured earth oven that sits on a 55 gallon drum. Note the thick wooden door with the robust handle.