Bryanna Clark Grogan’s Vegan Feast Kitchen/ 23rd Century Table

Photo by Dianne  Radmore/Fireweed

A LITTLE EXPERIMENT THAT WENT QUITE WELL: NO-KNEAD PIZZA DOUGH BAQUETTES--

I had some leftover no-knead pizza dough in my refrigerator yesterday. We had our fill of pizza for a while, so I considered freezing the dough, but then thought, "Why not try making a couple of baguettes out of it?" Why not, indeed. It's a similar simple dough (see the recipe for the dough at the end of this post).

I have a baguette pan, but it has a hook on one end, which makes it difficult to place inside even my largest roaster.


I decided to line the baguette pan with 3 layers of foil, line the troughs with baking parchment and let the dough rise in that setup (for about 2 hours because the dough was cold).


When I heated up the oven (to 450 Degrees F), I also heated up my big rectangular granite ware roaster.


I stretched and folded the refrigerated dough a few times before shaping it into two loaves.


When the time came to bake, I slid the foil form out of the baguette pan onto the bottom of a baking sheet and then carefully slid that into the shallow bottom of the hot roaster.



The foil kind of spread outward at this point, so I quickly rolled up some more foil into two long "sausages" and used those to prop up the outside edges of my makeshift baguette pan liner (I saved all this foil for another use, BTW).

I scored the tops of the dough with a serrated knife before baking, but not deeply enough, evidently, because you couldn't see the scoring at all after it was baked (I'll use a razor blade on the soft dough next time). However, as you can see, it turned out well, had wonderful flavor (it was in the refrigerator for 2 nights), and disappeared very fast with a vegan stew I made for friends who came for dinner.

Photo by Dianne  Radmore/Fireweed

I'll be doing this again!

Printable Copy

BRYANNA'S NEAPOLITAN-STYLE NO-KNEAD PIZZA CRUST ( or about 4 baguettes)
Servings: 36
Yield: makes about six 11"-square pizzas

This is our current favorite pizza dough-- partly whole wheat and no oil added, but very tender.

6 cups unbleached white flour or unbleached bread flour (use bread flour in the USA-- Canadian all-purpose unbleached flour has the same gluten content as USA bread flour)
1 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1 Tbsp sea salt (fine)
3 cups warm water
1 Tbsp instant yeast

In a large bowl, mix together the two flours and the salt.

In a 1-quart/L container, sprinkle the yeast into the water and let sit for a few minutes.  Stir and pour into the flour mix. Have ready another large bowl, oiled lightly.

Stir the mixture with a Danish dough whisk or large spoon.  Use your hands to mix/knead in the last bit of flour.  Using a dough scraper, scoop the dough into the oiled bowl.  Cover and let rise at room temperature for 2 or more hours (this is flexible). Refrigerate in the same bowl, either covered, or placed inside of a food-safe plastic bag (it won't touch the dough if the bowl is big enough), or in a covered container such as a dough bucket or large storage container. Place in the refrigerator.

You can keep the dough in the refrigerator for about 2 weeks, although, in my experience, it gets kind of "soggy" by then.  It does taste marvelous after a long stay in the refrigerator!

Make as many pizzas as you like (refrigerate any leftover dough again) as usual and bake at the highest heat your oven can reach (500-550 degrees F) for 8-10 minutes, using a baking stone or cast iron skillet heated up in the oven as it comes up to temperature.

See these blog posts for tips about rolling out and baking pizza:
http://veganfeastkitchen.blogspot.ca/2006/05/vegan-pizza-night.html
http://veganfeastkitchen.blogspot.ca/2011/10/cast-iron-skillet-pizza-perfect.html

Nutrition Facts
Nutrition (per 1/6th of one square 11-inch pizza): 93 calories, 3 calories from fat, less than1g total fat, 0mg cholesterol, 189.1mg sodium, 47mg potassium, 19.6g carbohydrates, 1.2g fiber, less than 1g sugar, 3g protein.

I have tried hard not to give in to the urge to bake bread these days, as we are trying to lose the 5 Christmas pounds we both gained over the holidays. It's not that we don't eat bread-- we eat moderate amounts of DH's good mostly-wholewheat bread. But it's hard not to eat too much of it when you are faced with a crackly artisan loaf! But, I gave in last week-- gave in to the urge to attempt to make a really good baguette. I decided to try a no-knead baguette and I used the recipe at the King Arthur Flour website as a starting point.

I did make some changes, though--

1.) I used 1 cup of wholewheat flour and the rest (7 cups) Canadian unbleached white flour.

2.) I used dry active baking yeast (the same amount-- 1 tablespoon) instead of instant yeast, and I used slightly warmer water (3 cups) and dissolved the yeast in it first. I used the same amount of table salt (1 tablespoon).

3.) I didn't knead the dough at all in a mixer, as the recipe had instructed-- I wanted to keep it simple, like my other artisan-style bread, so I just stirred the ingredients together in a large bowl, then let the dough rise, covered, for 2 hours (you can actually let these no-knead doughs rise in a coolish kitchen for up to 18 hours before refrigerating, if you like), and stored it in the refrigerator in a container with plenty of room to rise.

4.) I changed the baking method-- more about that further down.



The dough (with 1/4 of it used already) after a few days in the refrigerator.

The dough is drier than my own no-knead bread, but I figured, what the heck-- you aren't using alot of expensive ingredients in this bread!

The recipe is a little confusing about how much it makes, but it does make 4 baguettes. I made one loaf up after about 3 days in the refrigerator, and I rested and shaped and rose the bread as per the recipe (there are pictures for shaping here). I rose and baked it in a parchment-lined dark baguette pan at 450 degrees F, as the recipe instructed. It turned out pretty good, crackly crust and moist inside, but not enough holes for me.

Forming the baguettes (sorry about the odd coloring in these photos!):



I made a batch of 2 baguettes last night and I tried something different with the baking. I shaped them as instructed and rose them inside of "troughs" made with heavy tea towels, lined with baking parchment (which I sprinkled with flour), instead of in the pans.



I placed the shaped baguettes into the "troughs" with the seam-side-up this time, because what I wanted to try was heating the baguette pans in the oven first, along with a large rectangular roasting pan to use as a cover, and I'd have to turn the baguettes into the hot pan. I figured that this might create more of a "mini brick oven" atmosphere, as we do when baking round or oval loaves in a preheated covered pot.

When the baguettes had risen in their "troughs" for 1 1/2 hours on my kitchen counter, I heated the oven, with the baguette pan and the roasting pan in the oven (to 475 degrees F this time) for half an hour, giving the loaves a full 2 hours to rise. Then I removed the hot pans from the oven, sprinkled the baguette pan with a little flour, and up-ended the risen loaves carefully into the hot baguette pan "troughs", seam-side-down, using the parchment they rose in as a "carrier". It worked!

I sprinkled the tops with a bit more flour, slashed the tops with a razor blade, sprayed them with warm water, and hurried them into the hot oven. Then I turned the hot roasting pan over the baguette pan to form a cover. The whole affair was not covered on the very ends because there is a handle on the baguette pan which was longer than the pan, but I figured mostly covered was possibly better than not covered at all!

I set the timer for 25 minutes and left it alone, hoping for the best! After 25 minutes, I removed the cover-- they had risen beautifully! They were nicely browned on the bottom, but needed a little more browning on top, so I turned them over and let them bake, uncovered, for another 5 minutes before placing them on racks to cool. The crust was great-- you could hear it crackling as it cooled!





When we finally cut into it (so hard to wait!) we were rewarded with a moist, holey interior and excellent flavor from the longer fermentation in the refrigerator.

I have one loaf's worth of dough left-- maybe I'll make a few hard rolls with it!

Give this a try-- so yummy, and so simple. The absolute basic bread ingredients-- water, flour, yeast and salt-- turn into this wonderful creation with hardly any work. Really!

PS: Oh, and check out Yeastspotting, "a weekly showcase of yeasted baked goods and dishes with bread as a main ingredient." I just discovered it and there's alot of beautiful bread out there...whew!

Enjoy!