Beth: noKnead Bread

As the winter of 2006 was closing in, a lot of people were discovering an old approach to making bread. Writing in the New York Times, Mark Bittman described how to make a "no-knead bread" using a very wet (or "slack") dough that is allowed a long, slow rise and then baked in a covered, preheated dutch oven. The results were impressive: bread with a beautiful rustic, open crumb and a near-shatteringly crisp crust.

With 78,000 Google hits for "no-knead bread" there are no doubt thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of people who overcame their fear of yeast, baked their first loaf of bread, and were thrilled with what they created. They have reason to be proud too. The pictures are gorgeous, and more than a few people describe the crust singing as it cools, which is always a good sign.

I think this is great. Anything that gets people in their kitchens, particularly into scary territory like yeasted bread, is wonderful. Every time I come across a web site where someone has a picture of their very first loaf of bread I smile. More bread bakers makes me happy.

As someone who has been baking bread regularly for decades, however, this recipe is not quite such a huge revelation. I figured out long rise, cold-fermented, slack dough a long time ago and know how to reliably get crispy crust. Perhaps understandably, I was not in a huge rush to try the recipe. In fact, it took me all the way until February to try it, and then I only did it because Susan twisted my arm. Really hard.

The magic behind NoKnead Bread

Reliably turning out great bread at home requires you to master a technique or two and control the proofing and baking environment. This recipe shortcuts a few of these critical aspects of making good rustic bread, making it easier to create a loaf you will be happy to eat fresh out of the oven. While you will probably end up using variations on the original recipe, there are a few things to keep in mind about why this approach works so well:

The rustic open crumb of artisan bread requires slack dough, which can be a hassle to knead and work with. Treating the dough like a batter takes care of that, while the long rise allows for slow, but adequate, gluten development.

Concentrated bottom heat gives the bread more oven spring (rise) and a crispier crust. Baking stones, not preheated dutch ovens, are the usual solution to this problem, although it doesn't deal with the next thing...

Home ovens don't provide the steamy environment required for truly great bread—hence the steam pans, ice cubes, spraying water in the oven for the first few minutes of baking, and so on. By trapping the dough's moisture in the covered dutch oven, you can skip the initial steam creation rituals and let the dough steam itself.

I baked two batches before I wrote about it on kitchenMage and then I wrote: So, what do I think? Well, truth be told, it is great food blog bread. It is very pretty, no doubt about that. Visibly crisp crust. Beautiful open crumb. Yep. That's some gorgeous bread. Photographs beautifully, too. It is also dead simple to produce bread that pretty. The slack dough, long ferment, and baking method combine to make a very forgiving recipe. Served still warm with a slather of butter, it's an impressive loaf, especially for someone who seldom, or never, bakes.

That's not bad…but then I had to go on: Well, except in one aspect. It tastes like...not much. It's not even bad enough to be notable. Flavorless, gummy, and an hour out of the oven the crust starts to toughen.

Ouch! (but wait there's more...) I summed up this bread thusly: Bread to make you believe in the Atkins diet.

So clever. So witty. (So should have shut up.)

So when Kevin and Susan said we absolutely, positively, had to do noknead bread for this site I was a bit nonplussed. If nonplussed means freaked out. There was whining and wheedling, bitching and moaning, and all sorts of carrying on.

I called an executive meeting, at which they reminded me that two was more than one and I was outvoted. I begged and said they could call me a snob on the site if they wanted. They laughed.

Worse, they made me go first!

Bummer. To quote a teenager I know, "sucks to be me..."

This forced me to seriously examine what I didn't like about the recipe and find a way to fix it. So, what was wrong? Well, from my perspective, the bread has three significant down sides:

• Boring, bland, blah. All white flour meant the bread lacked flavor. The salt in the recipe needed to be doubled. Did I mention the boring white flour?


• The long rise at room temperature gives the yeast time to digest a lot of the sugars and enzymes that are being broken out of the flour, reducing the flavor. A lot.


• The covered baking dish often results in a moist, somewhat gummy interior, especially in the center bottom.

The second was easy to fix. I use cold fermentation for bread all the time; clearly this would have to be done that way. A bit of experimentation was all it would take to find the right balance of time and temperature.

The last seemed to be a matter of less covered baking time, maybe with adjustments to time and temperature. (hmmm, time and temperature, I detect a theme…)

The first of these, however, offered me one of those double edged opportunity/danger situations. A quick search online demonstrated that there were already been a lot of variations on this recipe, some more successful than others, in the wild. Herbs, sourdough, chocolate chip (hmmm, chocolate, that helps anything!), mushrooms, cheese… You name it, someone has tried it. Interesting, but this could take a long time and much experimentation and I was on a deadline.

Closing in on the date for this post, I was still playing with ideas in my head, not in my kitchen where I needed to be, when I came here to check on comments and found inspiration instead.

You see, two of our most dedicated bakers, Judy and oopsydeb, were talking about Farmgirl's Oatmeal Toasting Bread—one of my favorites—and that made me think of my cinnamon swirl version of Susan's recipe and one thing led to another and I finally went to the kitchen and seven experimental batches later, I give you…

kitchenMage's little bit Twisted, kinda Nuts, noKnead Oatmeal Toasting Bread
(with apologies to Susan)

ingredient US volume | Metric Volume | US weight | Metric
oatmeal 1/2 cup | 118 ml | 2 ounces | 56 grams
brown sugar 2 tablespoons | 30 ml | 1 ounces | 28 grams
boiling water 1 cup | 236 ml | 8 ounces | 224 grams

cold water (or ice) 3/4 cup** | 177 ml | 6 ounces | 168 grams
whole wheat flour 1/4 cup | 59 ml | 1 ounce | 28 grams
bread flour 2 1/4 cups | 532 ml | 10 3/4 ounces | 300 grams
instant yeast 1 1/2 teaspoons | 8 ml | scant 1/4 ounce | 5-6 grams
cinnamon 1/2 teaspoon | 3 ml | 1/8 ounce | 2-3 grams
nutmeg 1/2 teaspoon | 3 ml | 1/8 ounce | 2-3 grams
vanilla extract 1/2 teaspoon | 3 ml | 1/8 ounce | 2-3 grams
salt 2 teaspoons | | 3/8 ounce | 10 grams

Filling
nuts, chopped 1/2 cup | | 2 ounces | 56 grams
cinnamon sugar A few tablespoons or so…it's sprinkling, how exact do you want?

**To measure ice without a scale, pour 2 cups of cold water into a 4 cup measuring cup and add ice until it measures ~2 2/3 cups. Smoosh the ice cubes flat with the water surface, it should then measure 2 3/4 cups. Adjust until it does. Or buy a scale already. Really!

Mixing and fermentation
In a mixing bowl, combine oatmeal, brown sugar and boiling water. Stir well. Cover bowl with clean towel and let cool.

This mixture needs to be no warmer than room temperature before you can continue. How you achieve this is a bit different depending on whether you are using ice or cold water:
Cold water—let the mixture cool to lukewarm, 30-45 minutes and add water.
Ice—wait 10 minutes, add the ice and stir until it melts.

Add the rest of the ingredients and mix until well combined. The dough will be thick enough to scoop a large spoonful and have it stay relatively intact—it's very similar to the texture of well-cooked oatmeal.

Cover the bowl and let the dough rise until doubled in bulk. (This took 3 1/2 hours in my 70° kitchen.)

Refrigerate dough overnight (at least 6 hours).

Shaping and final rise
The next morning, remove dough from the refrigerator and let it warm on the counter for an hour or two. It will still be cool to the touch.

While the dough is warming, chop nuts and mix cinnamon sugar if you don't have some on hand (my standard cinnamon sugars is ~3 parts each brown and white sugar to 1 part cinnamon). Also, cut a piece of parchment paper and place it in the container in which the dough will rise.

Flour the counter and scoop dough onto it.

The filling is layered into the dough with two tri-folds — like folding a letter to go into an envelope — first in one direction, then the other. Start by nudging the dough into something resembling a rectangle. Sprinkle the dough with a quarter of the nuts and cinnamon sugar. Fold one third of the dough towards the middle, sprinkle with a little more of the goodies. Fold the other third over.

Let the dough rest for a few minutes. It should relax back into a rectangle, more or less. Rotate the dough a quarter turn and repeat the topping process.

Gently place the dough on the parchment and let rise until doubled in bulk. This may take a long time (4-5 hours).

When the dough is about half-risen, put the covered baking container in the oven and preheat it at 450F (230C) for at least 45 minutes, although an hour is better. (I used a 2 1/2 qt, 7 inch wide Calphalon saucepan.) If you have a baking stone, place the pan on the stone to heat.

Baking
Once the dough has doubled in size, place it in the baking pan by lifting the corners of the parchment with the dough on it. Lowering it into the baking pan and cover. Bake for 30 minutes.

Reduce oven temperature to 400F (205C) and uncover the pan. (If you have a stone, remove the pan from oven and finish baking on the stone.) Continue baking until crust is dark brown and the loaf sounds hollow when thumped on the bottom, approximately 30-40 minutes. An instant read thermometer should register 210F (99C). Let cool completely on rack.

Not surprisingly, this makes excellent toast.

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