Saturday, November 8, 2008

Baking Queen? Not Quite.

I came home from Knitting this afternoon to make No-Knead Bread. I got the suggestion from a Rav member in the Cooking group as a fabulous use of my fancy Le Creuset dutch oven. It has to rest for 18 hours, but I thought it was 24, so I had to kick around a bit to have it ready at a reasonable hour so I didn't have to wake up super early tomorrow to bake it. I'm a tad concerned about the dough, as it's supposed to be 'shaggy & sticky'. While I have no idea what 'shaggy' would refer to in dough, I do know sticky and this didn't seem all that sticky. I fear I may have a bit too much water, or used flour I shouldn't have. So, the possibility of it not turning out, coupled with having a ton of yeast leftover, I decided to try another bread recipe I've had sitting around the house for a while for Honey Whole Wheat bread. (Sorry, no linky, it's not online!) I have never had the best luck with bread (except for the monkey bread last Christmas), so it was a nice surprise that it turned out edible. I don't think it's exactly right because it's quite dense, which I think means I should have let it rise more. But turned out well enough that I'll try again in the future. We'll see tomorrow how the no knead turns out.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I started baking bread in a bread machine ... before I donated the contraption to Goodwill. I didn't really like baking bread ... until I tried it by hand. The best part of baking bread IS the kneading. Just digging your hands into the dough, punching it down, and gently working it into a smooth, elastic batter. And don't worry about what all those silly recipe books say about overkneading, it's almost impossible to do so. Just knead until the dough is smooth or until you're sick of kneading.

But, then I love to cook, so perhaps I'm not the best person to give advice. Grin.

Hope your bread comes out tasty!