5-MINUTE NO-KNEAD YEAST BREAD (AND FOCACCIA), TAKE TWO!

Okay, I promise not to do another bread blog post for a while! But I just had to post this one! ANOTHER UPDATE AT BOTTOM OF POST--FLATBREADS! AND MORE PICTURES HERE.

 

 After experimenting with the "five-minute" no-knead method of bread making in this blog post, which I really liked, but thought could be improved a bit, I made a slightly different dough on Monday and baked a loaf of bread and a focaccia today. The bread and the focaccia were fabulous! Here are the changes I made: I doubled the recipe because I thought the loaf size of the original recipe was too small. The original recipe called for all unbleached flour-I used more than 1/3 whole wheat. It also called for 1 1/2 tablespoons of yeast for a recipe half this size, which I think is way too much. (I can't figure out why they used so much yeast. ) I cut that by 2/3's. I also added 1/2 tablespoon olive oil per loaf because I thought the dough was a little tough without it, especially for pizza. I combined some of the quality's of Jim Lahey's no-knead bread, along with his novel baking method, with the Jeff Hertzberg's "five-minute" no-knead, refrigerated dough method. (PS: You don't HAVE to use Jim Lahey's baking method-- baking in a preheated heavy pot or casserole. If you aren't really concerned about an extra-crunchy crust, you can bake the bread in a regular loaf pan, or baguette pans, or whatever! In a loaf pan, it might be adviseable to bake the bread at only 375 degrees F.)

MORE PICTURES OF THIS BREAD ON THIS BLOG POST! WHY I USED LAHEY'S BAKING METHOD COMBINED WITH THE "5-MINUTE" MIXING AND REFRIGERATION METHOD: 1.) Lahey's baking method (in a heavy covered pot) produces amazingly crusty bread, but 2.) the "five-minute" method of mixing and refrigerating the dough is so much easier and more spontaneous than the long rise at room temperature, and I think 3.) the taste is better. (4.) It also makes it practical to bake bread fresh every day, since you can have some dough in the refrigerator at all times, and this type is really best when eaten the same day it is made.) AND 5.) the wet dough is much easier to handle when cold. I used a little more water than required by the "five-minute" recipe, so that the dough was more like Lahey's very wet dough. 6.) The wetter dough tends to give you more big irregular holes.

   

7.) The bread baked by Lahey's method stayed crunchy after it cooled, and I have found that often you'll get a crispy crust in your home oven, after using steam, etc., but then it softens as it cools. Not this way! The baking in a heavy, covered pot acts like a miniature brick oven, creating steam inside to help the

The finalized recipe for this bread will be in a new book coming out late in 2010. The science behind it-- Harold McGee author of "On Food and Cooking" (Scribner, 2004-- a book I have on my personal shelf!), says: "It makes sense. The long, slow rise does over hours what intensive kneading does in minutes: it brings the gluten molecules into side-by-side alignment to maximize their opportunity to bind to each other and produce a strong, elastic network. The wetness of the dough is an important piece of this because the gluten molecules are more mobile in a high proportion of water, and so can move into alignment easier and faster than if the dough were stiff." As well, the long rise produces umami flavor compounds which give the bread outstanding flavor.

This is the casserole I used, but you can also use a deep cast iron skillet or Dutch oven with a lid (can be enamel-coated or not), or a heavy ceramic covered casserole (NOT unglazed clay).

Focaccia made with this dough:

 

UPDATE: I made some flatbreads with the (cold) dough this morning-- just took fist-sized pieces and rolled them out and cooked them on both sides in an ungreased cast-iron pan over medium heat (heat pan well first). They probably would have made "pockets" if I'd covered them and let them rise for 30 minutes or so, but they did bubble up and they are delicious!

 

Enjoy!