you're probably right.

I read that line in the first bagel recipe I found a few years back. I shook my head and boiled a pot of water anyway. It was a night and day difference in the final bagel. A sprinkling of oats on the baking tray kept the moist bagels from sticking/burning.

27o,

Not sure if this is helpful to you, but the replacement handle for Le Creuset dutch ovens (something silly like $12?) made of metal for high temp cooking is pretty clutch. A bit sad that for the bazillion dollars for the piece they don't include both or something.

thanks. i've already bought one repalcement when i dropped the lid once, but def getting the metal one next.

Yeah this. The Le Creuset handle also fits my Lodge oven.

Don't have a recipe but I just had a few slices of this and thought I would share. Someone brought home a loaf of this chocolate bread and OMG!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.sendbread.com/cart/index....products_id=25

I got this book to learn more about techniques and the chemistry involved in breadmaking and here's the result:



A little more involved than the no-knead recipe, but this turned out a lot better.

Going to try out some recipes involving pre-ferments this weekend. Will post results.

Is this thread still alive?

Starters are the ****. My gf and I bake a new loaf every week. Beer bread is also a great quickie if you don't have a starter handy.

So is the Myrtle Allen's brown bread recipe. It's delicious, no kneading, and takes just over an hour from mixing to eating.

http://www.jamesbeard.org/recipes/my...ns-brown-bread

I have been baking a lot of bread lately. I've made it my mission to master a rustic sourdough loaf, and the end goal is to make awesome homemade pizzas.

It involves a good amount of technique, especially if you're working with a wet, slack dough.

I keep meaning to try making those little baguettes for banh mi sandwiches. There's a cute Vietnamese girl on Youtube that shows how, she's awesome.

are you going for something with the awesome rustic crust around the outside? i make a ton of homemade pizza...mind sharing what you're doing?

I'm going to give this focaccia recipe a go.

everybody has yeast lying around? don't think so sweetie

Have been wanting to try making no-knead bread for a while now - and after seeing the pics in this thread, now I really want to try making no-knead bread ... drool!


Am still searching for a whole wheat version that doesn't look too 'wheaty', since I just stated eating more whole grains. But the whole wheat versions look like they turn out a little more dense than the regular recipe, even with the addition of more gluten. But while I've been searching for whole wheat versions, a lot of other different variants of the original recipe were popping up too - they all look so good:

Jalapeno and Cheddar - http://natureandlifenotes.com/2013/0...o-knead-bread/
Garlic and Rosemary - http://noblepig.com/2013/02/easy-art...osemary-bread/
Olive - http://www.macheesmo.com/2009/10/olive-bread/
Goat Cheese and Onion - http://theredspoon.com/2013/05/goat-...o-knead-bread/
Challah - http://www.food.com/recipe/easy-no-k...h-bread-390530


May try making a loaf soon

Getting a good crust has been pretty easy for the most part. I've been using a 4-qt cast iron dutch oven @ 475F, preheat with lid for 30 min, bake with lid for 30 min, bake for another 15-20 with lid off.

I've chosen to work with pure levain doughs, i.e. sourdough starter with no commercial yeast. My procedure has been this: autolyse for 20-30 minutes, mix with levain and salt, bulk fermentation over 10-15 hours that involves folding the dough 4-5 times, shape and proof in a banneton/brotform for 4 hours, then bake. Because wild yeast isn't as vigorous as commercial yeast, I've been trying to figure out if there's something I can do better to help the internal structure of the bread. Really what I'd like is fewer big bubbles and more small bubbles. I'm going to try a few different techniques out, like this:

http://www.gourmet.com/magazine/vide...net_sweetdough

Also, slapping out some of the larger air bubbles before the final shaping/rise.

I want to master handling a wet dough and baking a good loaf before moving onto pizzas, since pizza-making will require some more expensive equipment. I'm planning on getting a baking steel and a wood peel, and I'll be starting with hand-kneaded doughs so that I don't have to buy an expensive stand mixer before discovering that I hate making pizzas.

Gonna need a report on the technique from that video when you try it.

Next Sunday I'm supposed to be talking my starter over to a friend's place to get him started baking breads. He's a chef and I'm nervous as hell about it.

I made some focaccia but used this recipe instead of the video, and also topped mine with chilli flakes:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/fo...rlic_and_35777

It came out great and was super simple. Only complaint was I overcooked it slightly and the some of the garlic and chilli that wasn't pushed in enough burnt a bit, so had to be picked off.

Unfortunately I couldn't get any photos as, especially right before it went in the oven, it looked amazing.

Ken Forkish's Saturday white bread with 15% whole wheat.

Rather beautiful.

In other news, I think I've had a breakthrough in understanding how to handle wet dough. Looking forward to this next loaf.

that's awesome. thanks. a friend of mine actually built a brick pizza oven at his place. we've had a few make your own parties there--i've mostly focused on bringing good sauce/mozz. and we've only worked w the dough you get at somewhere like trader joe's. etc.(i have made my own dough a couple times a long time ago..wasn't that great!) it's definitely a key part that i consistently slack on.

*in that brick oven we're just throwing in corn meal/using a home-made peel?? that he made out of steel(i think) attached to like a shovel pole lol...that oven is ridic hot. we were testing it with one of those handheld laser temp gauges--i wanna say it was just under 800. at the house i just use one of those pizza stones in the oven. i've also been meaning to try out doing it on a grill, just haven't gotten around to it yet-but i've seen some good pics.

That **** is outstanding, skunk.

It looks like you're not scoring the dough and just letting the loaves split. How are you getting that kinda ovenspring? Is that just a result of the high hydration?

It's a Ken Forkish thing to not score the bread. I haven't noticed much of a difference in rise by scoring vs not scoring, but I suspect that you nailed it re: high hydration. These loaves were a breakthrough because I figured out how to develop the gluten structure -- previously, handling these doughs was so difficult that I couldn't do a proper fold-and-invert process. So really I think it's the hydration with proper gluten structure.

Yup you just have to keep pounding away at it (twss). If you're making bread regularly and are getting fed up of the kneading, getting a decent mixer with a dough hook attachment makes life much easier.